Well, it's Wednesday and we're at the halfway mark of our week.
While that milestone may provide some hope to those with an eye towards the weekend, another recently passed milestone is one of hopelessness.
Recently Donald Trump passed the 100 day mark of his return to the Presidency. Assuming a 4 year term, we are less than 7% through our miserable sentence of dealing with this reprehensible asshole.
I wrote back on June 6, 2017, "Donald Trump Is Not The President of the United States of America. Donald Trump Is The President of the Part of the United States of America That Voted For Him." I modified that assessment on November 8, 2019, that Li'l Donnie's focus was even more narrow:"Donald Trump is the President of Donald Trump."
Trump 2.0 is leaned hard into this. He's doing shit that his MAGA base never asked for and doing harm to the very people who voted for him.
I saw video this weekend on TikTok from a woman who said her family voted for Donald Trump 3 times (2016, 2020 and 2024). Her family runs a farm which receives significant income from providing food to help those in need around the world.
Now that income is gone, the farm is danger of being lost all because Donald Trump cut USAID, the agency that provided food to help those in need around the world.
I am sorry for the difficulties this farm family is going throught but Donald Trump never hid who he was and slashing an actually beneficial program to satisfy some petty selfish agenda, well, that's pretty much on brand for this lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, small minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit!
100 days gone. And so much god damn road in front of us.
So a week or so back, Andrea and I caught up to the end of season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again and...
DAMN! That got super dark!
Daredevil: Born Again picks up several years after the end of the Netflix series and 1 year after Matt Murdock's friend and law partner Foggy Nelson is assassinated by Bullseye.
Matt suited up as Daredevil to confront Bullseye and throws him off a 5 story building with the intent of killing him.
Bullseye doesn't die from the fall but Matt hangs up the Daredevil suit.
Meanwhile after being gone for a long while, Wilson Fisk, the erstwhile Kingpin, has returned to New York City.
Wife Vanessa is not sure how she feels about that. She's been running the vast Fisk criminal empire and running it very well.
Wilson has aspirations beyond returning to the role of the Kingpin. He wants to be mayor of New York City.
And despite being a dour, grim, gravel voiced bulky man monster with zero charisma, Wilson Fisk gets elected mayor.
Wilson chafes at the constraits of the niceties of being mayor, the glad handing, the public appearances, the photo ops.
There is one funny sequence involving Wilson Fisk making a series of appearances at elementary schools where each school's chorus has decided to perform the same damn song: "We Built This City" by Starship.
Wilson Fisk is used to being the Kingpin, barking orders and expecting things to be done or there will be hell to pay.
The nuances of politics gives way as Wilson becomes more Kingpin like. Why cajole and smooze when you can blackmail and threaten?
Kingpin's only real threat is Police Commissioner Gallo and Wilson resolves that threat personally: by squeezing Gallo's skull with his bare hands until Gallo's head bursts like a grape.
Holy shit! That was gruesome. (Andrea was hiding under a blanket.) Yes, Kingpin has super strength as demonstrated in the Hawkeye series.
Meanwhile...
Matt Murduck is trying... really, really trying to make a difference as a lawyer but damned if it seems like he's getting nowhere.
Then the masked serial killer Muse has taken at least 60 lives in New York and it appears this is a job for Daredevil.
Muse is a nasty piece of work. His M.O. is to drain the blood of his victims, mix the blood with paint and paints murals all over the city.
The season ends with Wilson Fisk in full Kingpin mode declaring martial law over New York City and Daredevil realizing he is outmatched and needs an army to defeat Fisk once and for all.
I am hoping for some guest appearances by other NYC set street level characters like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Moon Knight, the Kate Bishop Hawkeye and others.
The only team up we got in season 1 was with Frank Castle, the Punisher.
All in all, Daredevil Born Again was a very grim and gritty take on the Marvel Universe, perhaps a bit grimmer and grittier than I was expecting. Andrea elected to join me for this show because she liked Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock in his appearances in Spider Man: No Way Home and his arc in She Hulk: Attorney At Law.
I tried to warn her that more light hearted take was not what we were going to get here. Still, I was uncomfortable that Andrea was on this journey with me when Kingpin crushed Gallo's skull in his hands. YUCK!
I was a big fan of Vincent D'Onofrio from his work on Law & Order: Criminal Intent but nother prepared me for how deeply he was invested in the character of Wilson Fisk.
Daredevil Born Again was not without drama behind the scenes. The original concept for the series was for it to be more episodic and with a light touch. Episodes were actually shot but all that got scrapped. New showrunners were brought in with a darker vision and more serialized storyline.
Daredevil Born Again will be back in March 2026 with season 2 and I am so looking forward to the Kingpin getting his ass handed to him.
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Weird Episode Title Coinky Dink
Last week's episode of Ghosts was "I Know What You Did 37 Summers Ago". It's an episode that revists the death of teenager Stephanie by a chain saw wielding pyscho killer.
The show that followed was a new episode of Elsbeth with the title "I Know What You Did 33 Summers Ago". Same title construction, weird, right? Elsbeth investigates the 33 year old murder of a teenage girl by a selfish, rich, entitled brat who is now a selfish, rich, entitled Supreme Court nominee. And Elsbeth doesn't win? Well, that was unusual. The episode ends with the normally perky and positive Elsbeth disillusioned.
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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.
Isn't it great to live in America where we have freedom of religion.
In celebration of that freedom, I hope you worshipped in the Baptist church of your choice.
Isn't freedom of religion great? No one is forcing you to worship at a particular Baptist church. You are free to choose which Baptist church you want to worship in.
Time to get on with another week.
Donald Trump has been pushing freedom of religion.
"We're bringing religion back!"
Yeah, but whose religion?
Well that can be answered by one of Li'l Donnie's executive orders to seek out and stop anti-Christian bias.
And good little MAGA servant that she is, Attorney General Pam Bondi created within the Department of Justice an Anti-Christian Bias Task Force.
We have a government agency that is supposed to be dedicated to the equal and fair application of the rule of law creating an entity in support of a specific religion.
Which I believe is in the constitution that we're not supposed to do that.
In a country where protestant Christian churches dominate the landscape, there are "alleged" Christians who would have you believe they are an oppressed minority.
Well, these people do get pissy when the rule of law runs counter to their faith.
Like the case of the 75 year old grandmother who was arrested for restricting access to a Planned Parenthood clinic.
Trump and his ilk will tell you she was arrested for being Christian.
No, she was arrested for blocking access to a public building.
So Trump and the DOJ are promoting the interest of one religion over another.
Their definition of "freedom of religion" is Christians should be able to do whatever they want regardless of the laws that all people are required to follow.
Something to think about as we kick off a new work week and head towards another Sunday.
When you can exercise your freedom of religion knowing you are free to worship in the Baptist church of your choice.
Unless you're black. You have your own special Baptist church you are free to worship in.
Welcome to Doctor Who Is NEW! where I post about the latest new episode of Doctor Who.
This week finds the Doctor and Belinda in the future and on an alien world.
There may be spoilers, honey!
The Well
by Russell T Davies and Sharma Walfall
It's 500,000 years into the future.
We've got ourselves a barn burner of an episode following classic Doctor Who tropes: the base under seige and a dwindling number of Space Marines in the face of an implacable threat.
The mission is to investigate a mining operation on a lifeless world known as "6767". The entire mining team is dead except for one lone survivor, Aliss, a frightened hearing impaired woman who just wants to go home.
Aliss says the crew killed each other in a frenzy of fear and paranoia. Aliss admits she killed one herself, a crew mate and friend who was about to attack and kill her. Aliss shot her first and now she is alone.
But maybe she is not so alone?
There is something else there, something on the periphery of your awareness, perceived only as a fleeting glimpse.
The Doctor gets really scared when he learns that this planet, before the miners stripped away all the diamonds, used to be called... Midnight.
Uh oh.
"Midnight" from 2008 is considered one of Russell Davie's strongest and most powerful episodes. The 10th Doctor (David Tennant) is trapped on a tour bus, isolated from help as an alien entity takes over one of the passengers and proceeds to manipulate the group into raging fear and paranoia and the Doctor barely escapes with his life.
"The Well" may not be quite as strong an episode as "Midnight" but it does a damn fine job of racheting up the tension as the unseen entity decimates the space marines and dear sweet Aliss just gets more scared.
A tip of the hat to Rose Ayling-Ellis, a deaf actress who portrays Aliss. Yes, she appears to be what she says, an ordinary woman frightened for her safety and the fear she may never see her family again. But since there's... something lurking behind her we can't quite see, we're not quite sure how much we can trust Aliss. To interact with the entity means Aliss must be in the center of the shot and Rose more than holds her own.
"The Well" resolves the central conflict with the Midnight entity very well with an action filled finale as the fear quotient keeps rising higher and higher.
But... (sigh!) evil is defeated.
Or is it...?
Was if there was more than one entity, one that escaped with the last of the surviving space marines?
Side note relating to the ongoing sub plot of getting Belinda back home. The Doctor assures Belinda that in the future, Earth reaches for the stars and humans are all over outer space.
So imagine Belinda's alarm when the space marines tell her they've never heard of the words "Earth" or "human".
Uh oh!
We're back next week for the return of Ruby Sunday.
Because I am in the middle of a 4 day 4 kegger birthday party RAGER, today's movie post featuring the films of Alfred Hitchcock is a reprint from December 10, 2023.
In celebration of my son's December 11th birthday, today's movie post is dedicated to him.
Happy birthday, Dean!
The film I'm writing about today is Alfred Hichcock's seminal horror classic from 1960, Psycho!
....
Wait!
What?
What the hell does my son's birthday have to do with Alfred Hichcock's Psycho?
Well, that's an excellent question? My son's life and the events in Psycho both began on December 11th.
Alfred Hichcock added a very big graphic on screen at the very start of Psycho that this story begins on DECEMBER 11TH!
The reason is that Alfred Hichcock began shooting Psycho right after Christmas and in some of the city exterior shots, Christmas decorations are still up. To sidestep any questions about that, Alfred Hichcock simply opted to have Psycho begin a couple of weeks before Christmas.
Hence the very helpful graphic that this story begins on DECEMBER 11TH!
Forever linking this film to the birth of my wife and I's darling baby!
Happy birthday, Dean!
A few months ago, I had an opportunity to see Psycho straight through from the beginning for the first time in a long time. There's not a lot about Psycho you probably don't know, even if you've never seen the film.
The infamous shower murder scene has been parodied and homaged in countless movies and TV shows. Of course The Simpsons did it and before that, Mel Brooks did his own take on the terrifying scene in his film High Anxiety.
Even the "surprise twist" at the end ofPsycho about Norman Bates' peculiar relationship with his mother has been evoked. For example, it was the source of a weird fantasy sequence involving Howard and his mom in an episode of Big Bang Theory.
What I've been struck by before and was again when I rewatched the film is Alfred Hichcock's sheer audacity to mindfuck his audience.
1) Cast Janet Leigh, one of Hollywood's biggest and most glamorous stars, in the decidedly unglamorous role of Marion Crane, a frustrated woman in a dead end secretary job who has never done one damn reckless thing in her life. She steals $40,000 in cash from her boss.
2) Follow that character exclusively for every single inch of film, making sure the audience is totally invested in the story of Marion Crane.
3) Halfway through the movie, kill her!
What the hell? This movie is about Marion Crane, right? She's played by Janet Leigh, one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars, right? She can't be dead!
OK, I get it! She'll stir and stagger to her feet, badly hurt, fatally if she doesn't get help. Marion will somehow even on the verge of death get revenge on her killer. And she'll be saved by the policemen who have been surely after her for the money she stole from her boss.
Yeah, that's it! That darn Alfred Hitchcock almost had me fooled.
Killing off Janet Leigh halfway through the movie? No way!
Except...
Marion just lays there. Still and cold as death, her blood swirling with the shower water down the drain.
OK, that's a wrap! Thank you, Janet Leigh! You can go home now.
No! Not so fast, movie watcher! We have a movie to finish.
The story of Marion Crane now becomes the story of Norman Bates, the twitchy socially inept proprietor of the Bates Motel with the hectoring mother who lives in the old dilapidated house next door.
Norman loads Marion's body into the trunk of her car and sends it sinking into the gloomy murk of a nearby swamp.
Norman's done this before.
And he'll do it again before the movie is over.
Anthony Perkins was an up and coming actor in Hollywood, working in a variety of mostly supporting roles. It was the role of Norman Bates that gained Perkins the most notoriety.
The problem was that Perkins was so damn good at playing the unhinged psychotic homicidal wack job in Psycho, he became the go to for other film and TV roles as the unhinged psychotic homicidal wack job.
The first half of the movie is exclusively focused on Janet Leigh as Marion Crane. She is in every single shot of every single scene until she dies.
It almost seems disruptive when Hitchcock shifts gears to some more conventional storytelling in the 2nd half. A private investigator named Arbogast hired by Marion's boss to get his money back, Marion's lover Sam and her sister Lila are all trying to find the missing Marion and their paths lead them to the Bates Motel.
Arbogast gets killed when he pokes his head into Bates house next door to the motel and encounters "mother".
So Norman sends another corpse ladened car into the swamp.
It's got to be crowded in there.
Sam and Lila put themselves in the line of fire as they uncover the truth about Norman's mother who is in two places at once:
a desiccated corpse in a rocking chair.
Norman himself in a dress and a wig.
Dressed as his mother, Norman tries to stab Lila to death but Sam intervenes to save the day.
The ending is a bit clunky as a psychiatrist tries to shove 90 minutes of plot exposition into a 5 minute epilogue. Meanwhile, Norman is sitting in a holding cell under guard while in his head "Mother" narrates what's going to happen to Norman next.
Norman states serenely into space.
Well, that was weird.
Happy birthday, Dean!
Psycho is considered one of Hitchcock's best films, praised for its slick direction, tense atmosphere, impressive camerawork, a memorable score and iconic performances.
Speaking of the score, below are the opening credits from Psycho. That driving intense score by Bernard Herrmann is powerful stuff.
Hitchcock had trouble convincing Paramount to let him make this film. They were a bit skittish given the levels of violence and "deviancy" going on in the story. Hitchcock was able to prevail by agreeing to make the film on the cheap, employing mostly the production crew from this TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Watching Psycho is an enthralling experience because you can't quite believe what happens next. Even when you know what happens next.
My desires for this day of commemoration are simple.
I don't expect to get a Trump-less day.
I suppose this post would a prime opportunity to be reflective on my life so far and what I want to do next.
My life so far can be summed up by a line from Big Bang Theory that Leonard said: "Nothing happening here is being done on purpose."
My advice to any young'uns out there? Have a plan.
I'm what you get when you don't have a plan.
If your plan falls apart, make a new plan.
I think I should translate that into Latin and make it part of my family crest: "Nihil hic agitur de industria."
As for what happens next, I'm afraid I will have to reference Big Bang Theory again. Sheldon once met a man on a train who described himself accordingly: "Some boxes fell on my head at UPS, now I collect disability and ride trains."
Now THAT sounds like a great idea for the remainder of my life.
My dream for the future is to collect disability and ride trains.
So I'm 62 years old deriving my life lessons from Big Bang Theory?
Geez!
Have pity, why don't ya and I am so glad my suffering amuses you.
Chip Zdarsky's run on Batman came to an end in February but I've only now got a chance to catch up.
Zdarsky has done a lot of crazy shit during his time writing Batman.
Batman vs. Failsafe, a super powered android Batman himself created.
Batman survives a fall... from OUTER SPACE?!?!
Batman gets shifted across the multiverse to an Earth with an even worse Gotham City than the one he came from.
Batman gets his hand chopped off.
Batman now as a robot hand?!?
Batman vs. Catwoman?!?!
Batman vs. his emergency back up personality, the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh.
As writer Justin Epps wrote "Chip Zdarsky's Batman was all gas, no brakes." And that strikes me as a fairly adept assessment of this run of Batman stories.
Which brings us to Chip Zdarsky’s last arc, “The Dying City”.
Bruce Wayne is putting a crap ton of money into revitalizing Gotham City. Which should be a good thing, a billionaire spending money to help the common good instead of in selfish indulgence.
So why are there angry protestors outside of Wayne Enterprises?
It seems the very people Bruce is trying to help have been indoctrinated by the media that he's some kind of communist giving stuff to people who have not earned it.
It seems the Court of Owls is back and up to all sorts of sketchy shit, manipulating the media and the alleged legitimate business of Edward (the Riddler) Nygma. Which includes the mind control tech created by Jervis (The Mad Hatter) Tetch.
And the Court of Owls is being controlled by a Russian spy named Leonid Kull.
And Mayor Nakano gets murdered and the man who pulled the trigger appears to be former police commissioner turned private detective Jim Gordon.
Who by the way was having an affair with Nakano's wife so yeah, that doesn't look good.
Speaking of affairs, Bruce finds out his father Thomas had one with a nurse who has a son who may well be Bruce's heretofore unknown step brother who might be looking for a stake in the Wayne family fortiune. (Spoiler: DNA tests show he is not the progeny of Thomas Wayne. But the affair still happened.)
And I forgot to mention the immortal villain Vandal Savage is the current police commissioner? Really?
And Savage wants Batman arrested but he loves Gotham's new super hero, the patriotically themed "America First!" Commander Star!
Command Star is actually a Russian asset formerly known as KGBeast.
All gas, no brakes indeed!
"The Dying City" ends Chip Zdarky's reign on Batman as it began with an high octane, adrenaline fueled rush of ideas and action.
Chip has left a few things that will need to be dealt with. Vandal Savage is still the police commissioner and that's not good for anyone.
Opinions online differ regarding Chip Zdarky's Batman, some favorable, others not. As for me, I can't say I was ever bored.
Sometimes I think Chip went too far.
Batman survives a fall... from OUTER SPACE!!!
Oh come on now! How ridiculous is that?
But on the other hand... wow! Batman survives a fall from outer space? How cool is that?
Batman by Chip Zdardsky was challenging and different and more often than not, a lot of fun.
Under my usual diatribe that the wrong people keep dying, I suppose I should comment on the passing of Pope Francis.
At 88 years old and suffering from numerous ailments (including a visit from J D Vance right before he died), perhaps it was his time to go.
Still, there is one less decent man in a world filled with indecent people.
Pope Francis did not completely upend Catholic doctrine. A lot of the church's traditions and policies from way back when remain in place.
But Pope Francis was by all accounts who he seemed to be, a kind man of gentle humor, wisdom and compassion.
Against a rising tide of hatred for immigrants, Pope Francis emphasized mercy.
The Catholic Church's official position on the LGBTQ+ community didn't change but Pope Francis called for treating this community with kindness and respect.
Pope Francis demonstrated his humility by choosing to living in a spare modest apartment instead of the more ornate quarters reserved for the pope.
Somehow Pope Francis was your friend even if the church he led was not.
Even the Pope can only push so hard against centuries of Catholic policy.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump who is very old and subsists on a diet of chicken nuggets, decided it wouldn't hurt to suck up to God with the passing of the Pope.
"I just signed an executive order putting the flags of our country, all of them, all federal flags and state flags, at half-mast in honor of Pope Francis.So, he was a good man, worked hard. He loved the world and it's an honor to do that."
Yes, Donald Trump issued that solemn statement standing next to the Easter Bunny.
Easter Bunny:"Damn! I'm never gonna get that $50 Frankie owes me!"
While Donald Trump was sucking up to God, the rest of the MAGA movement did not hold back on their contempt for Pope Francis.
Megyn Kelly went on a rant about Pope Francis and his compassion for immigrants. "Do you know who deserved compassion? Laken Riley!"
Trump and his MAGA faithful are always telling us the immigrants are engaged in wholesale slaughter of American citizens, just hacking and slashing and shooting and stabbing and raping (Oh, do not forget the raping!) and pillaging a massive swath across America.
And their proof that all this is happening? Laken Riley.
Laken Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia who was murdered in February 2024 by a Venezuelan man who was an undocumented immigrant.
What happened to Laken is a tragedy, a travesty and the bastard who killed her deserves his own special corner of Hell where he will be rammed up the ass for eternity by demons with flaming red hot pokers.
But....
What about the thousands of undocumented immigrants who have NOT murdered anyone? All those people who came to the United States in fearful desperation clinging to the small chance at hope for a better life? What about them?
It was for those that Pope Francis would plead for mercy.
Sadly, from American conservatives who profess to be Christians, the answer is "Fuck them!"
There are alas so many of those people with the attitude of hate and contempt.
Greensboro has a Children's Museum which factored into our lives when our child was young. We even had a birthday party for our son there once.
It's a colorful and vibrant resource for kids to play and interact with various exhibits and games. The museum included a space capsule, the cockpit of a jet airliner, a pretend grocery store, various hands on science experiments and more.
There is a point where children age out of the children's museum but there is a rubicon crossed somewhere.
I know there was a time Dean could play in the children's museum all day.
Now, maybe 2 or 3 hours tops.
I was thinking about the days at the Greensboro Children's Museum as Andrea and I watched the 4th season finale of Abbott Elementary. It's the show's annual field trip episode and this year, the kids went to Philadelphia's Please Touch Museum.
The Please Touch Museum is the best Abbott can afford for a field trip after the punative measures the district took against the school for taking money under the table from the local golf course.
The younger kids are having a great time but the older kids, yeah this is for babies and they are bored out of their minds.
Until they use the theater exhibit to fill their time.
The season finale has Gregory Eddie's father who volunteers as a field trip chaperone. Gregory's father was a stern military martinet with no patience for whimsy and imagination. So imagine Gregory's surprise when his father joins Janine in doing fake voices and games of pretend with her first grade students.
The elder Mr. Eddie confesses to his son that maybe he could've been little less strict in his parenting and also notes that Janine reminds him of Gregory's late mother.
The Janine/Gregory relationship was handled well this season. They had a couple of wobbles this season but they've grown as a couple while avoiding any "Rachel/Ross" type nonsense.
One obstacle in their relationship was Gregory needing to take on a 2nd job when his landlord jacked up the rent due to gentrification of the neighborhood due to the newly constructed golf course. Given the state of teacher pay, what teacher does not have a second job?
So far Gregory and Janine have avoided the solution to the rent problem by moving in together. Perhaps that will be broached in season 5.
One development I did not see coming was how far Ava has come since season 1. Yes, she's still presents her shallow ego driven facde to the world but it turns out she's more valueable to the school as Principal than we realized.
Overall, Abbott Elementary had a strong 4th season with a lot of laughs and heartwarming moments.
That is that for this week's Touchbase.
Next week: season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again.
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.
Sorry, I lack the bananas for serious posting today.
To follow up on last Wednesday's post, I had speculated that Kilmar Abrego Garcia could not be released from the El Salvadoran prison because he was dead. Thankfully I was proven wrong when when Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) was able to obtain a meeting with Abrego Garcia.
But not able to secure his release.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele had this to say in reponses to Van Hollen's meeting with Abrego Garcia: “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”
Donald Trump still keeps trying to sell the narrative that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS 13 and deserves his fate in the El Salvador prison. He put up an altered photo showing Abrego Garcia's hands with MS 13 tatoos.
There is no credible evidence of any kind to connect Kilmar Abrego Garcia with any of the illegal immigrant drug cartel gangs that Trump insists are running wide across America like something from a Mad Max movie.
Beside this mess with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump and his cronies are up to so many things that are illegal, immoral, unethical, incompetent (and so on and so on and you get the idea), I feel overwhelmed and hence my lack of bananas for today's post.
I'm back tomorrow for the Tuesday TV Touchbase and Wednesday is an edition of Dave-El's Spinner Rack (Comic Books! Yay!).
Meanwhile, find bananas somewhere as they are an excellent source of potassium and remember to be good to one another.
Welcome to Doctor Who Is NEW! where I post about the latest new episode of Doctor Who.
The new season moves onward as the Doctor and Belinda wind up in Miami, Fl of 1952 confronted by a movie theater haunted by the ghosts of the disappeared and most animated antagonist.
There may be spoilers, honey!
Lux
by Russell T Davies
Belinda Chandra is really insistent on getting back home which is the planet Earth on May 24, 2025.
The Doctor insists he really is trying to her back home but the TARDIS keeps bouncing off of planet Earth on May 24, 2025.
The Doctor rigs up some tech that he says will get her to planet Earth on May 24, 2025 but he has to land somewhere to make it work.
That somewhere is Miami FL in 1952.
Where there's a mystery to be solved.
Belinda accuses the Doctor of being Scooby Doo.
"I'm Velma, honey!" the Doctor retorts and we're off to races.
Well, with some caution.
We've got two people of color poking in the southern United States in 1952 with segregated diners and movie theaters.
15 people vanished within the movie house one night 3 months ago.
The culprit is a 1930's era cartoon called Mr. Ring A Ding who has come to life.
Mr. Ring A Ding is Lux Imperator, another of the pantheon of chaos gods like the Toymaker and the Maestro.
The Doctor and Belinda are transformed into cartoons but regain their 3-D forms by remembering stuff that makes them sad. But they are still stuck in Lux's world of film and wind up clambering into a world where...
Doctor Who is a TV show.
Fans Lizzie, Hasan and Robyn bring the Doctor and Belinda up to speed that in their world, the Doctor is a character in a TV show. And insist their favorite episode is "Blink".
Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu make a great combo. Varada's Belinda feels like a fully realized person and not just a character serving a plot point. Her reluctance to be on an adventure but her own inate empathy for those in need and a very human curiousity are well balanced.
I do not want to oversell "Lux" but I really would like to see it again sooner rather than later. It was scary, exciting and a lot of fun.
April begins with "A" and so does Alfred Hitchcock.
It's a new edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post as I write about another film by the master of suspense, director Alfred Hitchcock.
Today's film is a suspense thriller from 1941 called Suspicionbased on Francis Iles's 1932 novel Before the Fact. The film stars Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine as a married couple who are caught up in a murder plot.
Possibly.
It does seem like he is plotting to murder her.
Is he? Really? Let's find out!
It's a meet cute on a train in 1938 England.
Irresponsible playboy Johnnie Aysgarth meets bespectacled Lina McLaidlaw on a train in England. There's some back and forth "will they/won't they" until their rising sexual tension builds and builds and they just can't take it anymore and they have sex.
Sorry, this is a movie made in 1941.
Let's try that again.
There's some back and forth "will they/won't they" until their rising romantic desire builds and builds and they just can't take it anymore and they elope, get married and engage in legally sanctioned heteronormative sexual intercourse.
It's only AFTER the legally sanctioned heteronormative sexual intercourse Lina finds out that Johnnie is broke, is a habitual gambler, has no job and intends to live off Lina's money.
Oh hell no! Lina insists that Johnnie gets a job which he actually does.
The legally sanctioned heteronormative sexual intercourse is just that good!
But not good enough for Johnnie to behave himself.
He continues to gamble and goes into debt.
Johnnie sells some of Lina's stuff but he's still in debt.
Johnnie gets fired from his job for embezzeling and his boss promises to not file charges against him if Johnnie repays the money he stole. So... more debt.
Then Lina's father dies and Johnnie is upset that dear old dad did not leave any money to Lina.
Lina has a friend named Isobel who writes mystery novels for a living. Johnnie begins pumping her for information about poison. "I say, dear Isobel, if someone wanted to say... poison someone, hypotherically speaking, what kind of poison would be undetectable by the victim and untraceable in an autopsy?" Johnnie inquires of the novelist while staring at Lina with barely concealed contempt.
Lina thinks Johnnie is plotting to kill her!
Duh! You think?!
One night Johnnie brings Lina a glass of milk to drink before bedtime.
The glass is positively glowing!
The next morning, the glass is untouched as Lina packs up to go see her mother. Johnnie insists on driving Lina to the train station.
He takes a very curvy road along a friggin' cliff side at a very high rate of speed where it seems very clear his intent is to throw her out of the car in an "accident".
Or... not?
Johnnie stops the car and Lina confronts him!
Johnnie confesses he was plotting a death.
His own.
What?!?!
Unable to face up to his mounting debts, Johnnie was plotting how to take his own life.
Lina assures him he does not need to do this, they will deal with this together and...
What the hell, Hitchcock? Really?
Well, yeah but Alfred Hitchcock was not happy about it.
specialty drawing created by RKO for newspaper reproduction to publicize Suspicion
In the book Before the Fact, Johnnie IS plotting to kill Lina and Lina does die from being poisoned but not before she singled him out for her murder in a letter "before the fact".
Hitchcock wanted to follow the book which is why Johnnie spends so much of the movie looking at Lina like he can't kill her soon enough and get his hands on the sweet life insurance money.
But RKO Studios said you can't have Cary Grant murdering anybody.
As William L. De Andrea states in his Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994), "Suspicionwas supposed to be the study of a murder as seen through the eyes of the eventual victim. However, because Cary Grant was to be the killer and Joan Fontaine the person killed, the studio — RKO — decreed a different ending, which Hitchcock supplied and then spent the rest of his life complaining about."
Lina accepts Johnnie's statements in the final scene and decides that he is, for all his faults, no murderer, the film becomes a cautionary tale about the dangers of suspicion based only on assumed, incomplete, and circumstantial evidence.
But Cary Grant really leans hard into Johnnie's look and demeanor that just holds that the plot telegraph button hard that he is contemptuous of Lina and is not to be trusted.
Hitchcock himself may not be trusted as there is some evidence that ending of Suspicion was not forced on him by RKO. Still, Alfred goes to a lot of trouble to make us think Johnnie has murder in mind.
Hitchcock even rigged a special light in the glass of milk to draw our attention to the glass and make us suspicious of it's contents.
By the way, this is not my first film on this blog about a husband of questionable character plotting the death of a wife he can't stand for the money. In Sudden Fear, Jack Palance is plotting the death of Joan Crawford. In that film, the twist is Crawford's character isn't just suspicious of her husband, she KNOWS he's going to kill her. Also Jack Palance has a weirdly shaped head and is NOT Cary Grant.
Suspicion would have played better, I think, if Cary Grant had not leaned so hard on Johnnie's intensity and maybe relied on some classic Cary Grant charm to make the audience question it's own suspicions.
