Movie Time: Detour

It's Movie Time! 

Today's post is about a film noir that was released on this day 80 frickin' years ago. 

Wow! Time flies when you're caught in a web of deceit, betrayal, questionable life choices and.... murder!

From 1945, this is... Detour!

Meet Al Roberts, a struggling musician hitchhiking his way across America from New York City to Hollywood.

A woman done did him wrong and Al is determined to done did it right by following her out west.

Flashback time: Al Roberts was a piano player in a nightclub and Sue Harvey was the club's lead singer. Al and Sue are young and in love and life is good, at least for Al.

Sue thinks she can do better than schlepping as a singer in a two bit night club in New York City. So she books it for California to become a movie star.  

Al remains in the Big Apple all mopey and depressed then decides to fuck it all, quit his job and it's westward ho, young man!

Questionable Life Choice #1:  Al embarks on this journey with no money and no plan. It's thumb out and relying on the kindness of strangers to haul his butt as far west as he can git. 

Which is Arizona where a bookie named Charles Haskell Jr. gives Al a lift.  Charlie is on his way to Los Angeles to bet on a horse. 

Charlie is always popping pills for an unspecified medical condition.  While taking a turn behind the wheel, Al is unable to get Charlie to wake up.  Pulling over the car, Al opens the passenger side door and Charlie tumbles out, hitting his head on a rock.   

While it seems clear that Charlie died in his sleep, probably from a heart attack, Al is worried the blow to Charlie's head on the rock is going to make the police think Al killed Charles Haskell Jr.

I mean, yeah, the blow to the head will look kind of suss but an autopsy will show Charlie was dead from a heart attack before his skull collided with the rock.

But...

Questionable Life Choice #2:  Al hides the body in the brush and takes the dead man's clothes, money and ID, driving off to Los Angeles.  

All Al has to do is keep his head down, stay out of trouble, abandon the car somewhere outside of L.A. and proceed on his reunion with Sue. 

Questionable Life Choice #3: he picks up a hitchhiker, who gives her name as Vera.  She knows Al isn't Charles Haskell Jr. because damn the luck, she had hitched ride several states back with the real Charles Haskell Jr. He tried to rape her but she got away from him. So she knows the fucker she's with now ain't Charlie.

Questionable Life Choice #4: Al tells Vera what happened to Charles Haskell Jr. and she now uses that information to blackmail him into giving her all of Charlie's money plus whatever dough they can get from selling his car. 

Seems to me that Vera does not quite have the leverage Al thinks she has and could just very well drive off and leave her scheming ass by the side of the road.

But he doesn't. 

Questionable Life Choice #5: In Hollywood, they rent an apartment, posing as Mr. and Mrs. Haskell, because they need to provide an address when they sell the car. 

So "the Haskells" have a record of renting an apartment. This will come back to bite Al.  

But before Al can make the sale, Vera learns that were there was a Charles Haskell Jr., there is a Charles Haskell Sr. who is weathy, old and dying and looking to reconcile with his long lost son before he kicks the bucket.

Vera thinks Al could keep up the charade of being Charles Haskell Jr. and go claim Charles Haskell Sr's big bucks when he croaks.  

Al doesn't think this plan will work. Charles Haskell Sr. may be old and sick but come on, the man will know is own son and Al will NOT know stuff about Junior that the elder man will ask about.  

Questionable Life Choice #6: In a drunken rage, Vera argues that the plan will work and if Al doesn't cooperate, she's gonna call the police. To back up her threat, she runs into the bedroom with the telephone and locks the door.  

Vera passes out on the bed with the phone cord around her neck. From the other side of the door, Al pulls on the cord to try to disconnect the phone. When he breaks down the door, he discovers he has inadvertently strangled Vera.

What the fuck! Really?

Remember the whole reason Al embarked on this ill conceived misadventure in the first place? Yeah, he gives up on the idea that he and Sue will ever be a thing again and hits the road once more, hitching a ride to anywhere, nowhere.

Sitting in a diner in Reno, Nevada, Al hears on the news that Charles Haskell Jr. is wanted in connections with the murder of "his wife".  (Yeah, that apartment rental record back in Hollywood.)  

The film ends with Al imagining his inevitable arrest.

The Motion Picture Production Code did not allow murderers to get away with their crimes. That box gets checked off when the film ends with a police car picking Al up after he has his imagined flash forward to being arrested.  

Clocking in at a mere 68 minutes, Detour packs in a LOT of drama, crime and very Questionable Life Choices. (I counted 6 but I was being kind. The number is way higher.)    

It also also gained a considerable reputation among fans of film noir as perhaps the most bleak and nihilistic film noir thriller ever made.

Detour is a swirling nightmare of paranoia, death and despair.

Director Edgar G. Ulmer made this movie cheap and he made it fast.

• Shooting schedule:  six days
• Cast:  seven actors
• One outdoor desert location
• Six minimally furnished indoor sets. 
• New York City is a streetlamp on a fog-enshrouded sound stage
• Los Angeles is a drive-in restaurant and a used car lot. 

Ann Savage plays the venomous Vera and delivers what has been described as the most frightening femme fatale in the history of film noir.  Columbia had plans for Ann Savage in more glamorous roles but she was relegated to grade-B pictures.  

As luckless as Al Roberts is in Detour, the story of the man who played him is also frought with drama and questionable life choices.  Here is some of the shit that went down with actor Tom Neal.  

• an affair with Inez Martin, mistress of the notorious racketeer Aaron Rothstein
• Three failed marriages
• In 1951, Tom Neal got into a terrible fistfight with Franchot Tone. Tone was beaten unconscious and rushed to the hospital with a fractured cheekbone, broken nose, and brain concussion. 
• His acting career shot all to hell after that fight, Neal started a landscaping business that ended in bankruptcy.
• In 1965, he was accused of murdering his third wife, Gail Evatt, with a .45 caliber pistol. Neal was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison. 
• Eight months after he was paroled in 1972, Tom Neal died of congestive heart failure.

In 1992, Detour was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Pretty good outcome for a film about  questionable life choices made fast and cheap.

_______________________

Next Saturday, Movie Time returns to the 21st century.

It's time for Wicked: For Good.  

Movie Time: Soylent Green

I hope you had a chance to gather with family and/or friends to indulge in the yearly food fest known as Thanksgiving. I hope your table was blessed with food of sufficient quantity and quality.  

I guess we should be thankful we still have access to real food and not fabricated food substitute wafers made from...

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

It's.... Movie Time!

This week's cinematic post takes us back to 1973 for a film set in a dystopian future beset by a catastrophic climate, over population, wealth inequity and food shortages.

Was that a move I saw or was I just watching CNN?

Nope, it's a movie from 1973 starring Charlton Heston which combines science fiction elements with a crime procedural.

This is Soylent Green.  

In the future year of 2023, life on Earth sucks!

The compounding effects overpopulation, global warming, and pollution are pushing humanity towards extinction.

The population of the planet is 20 billion.

40 million of them are crammed into New York City.  

It's a hell of a great city to live... if you're rich.

The elite can afford spacious apartments, security, clean water and real food. 

These apartments come with concubines, sex workers who have no citizenship or right and are considered "furniture".

New York City is just plain hell if you're not rich.     

The poor live in whatever squalid corner they can find, use irradiated water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed and often toxic wafers: Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow.

Good news! The latest wafers taste better, have more nutritional value and are less likely to poison you: Soylent Green.

NYPD detective Robert Thorn lives with his aged friend Sol Roth, a brilliant former college professor and police analyst.

Thorn is investigating the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, a board member of the Soylent Corporation. Since the rich are supposed to have top of the line security, Thorns suspects this murder was a professional hit, an assassination.  

With the help of Simonson's concubine Shirl, his investigation leads to a priest whom Simonson had visited shortly before his death. Because of the sanctity of the confessional, the visibly exhausted priest can only hint to Thorn at the contents of the confession. 

For his trouble, the priest is also murdered.

Wow! Thorn has a doozy of a case on his hands.

Too bad he's been told to let it go.

Under direction from Governor Henry C. Santini, Thorn's superiors order him to end the investigation. 

Thorn is a classic archetype of movie detectives who will doggedly refuse to let go of a case even when told to do so by those in authority. 

Simonson's murder hints at something big and sinister and Thorn will be damned if he's just going to let it go. 

Driven by a need for order in a world in chaos.

Driven by a need for justice in a world increasingly without care.

Driven by a need to just know the answers in a world with too many questions. 

Roth is helping Thorn with research, reviewing some books that Thorn retrieved from Simonson's apartment: the Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015–2019.

The oceanographic reports that the oceans are dying and can no longer produce the plankton from which Soylent Green is made. Which begs the question: what the hell is Soylent Green made from?

The answer to that question was especially disturbing to Simonson and it appears the Soylent Corporation had him killed to keep him quiet.  

Roth is so bothered by these discoveries that he chooses assisted suicide at a government clinic.  Thorn tries to stop his old friend but he's too late. 

Thorn becomes more determined than ever to find proof of  the Soylent Corporation's crimes against humanity. 

Thorn secretly boards a waste truck transporting human bodies from the euthanasia center to a waste-disposal plant, where he witnesses human corpses being processed into....

Well, you know where this is going, right?

Thorn is discovered by Soylent's guards and he barely gets away. Thorns escapes to a church crowded with the indigent poor while Soylent sends a cadre of assassins in pursuit.  Thorn kills his attackers but is severely wounded.   

As paramedics tend to the injured Thorn, he shouts to the surrounding crowd, "Soylent Green is people!"

Gee, Dave-El, how about a spoiler alert or something. 

Look, Charlton Heston's frantic revelation is ingrained in pop culture and has been referenced, homaged and parodied countless times. The first time I watched Soylent Green, I already knew "Soylent Green is people!" from sheer pop culture osmosis.

Knowing about this film and watching this film are two different things and when I sat down to actually watch Soylent Green  from beginng to end, I was not fully prepared for the visceral power of the world this movie creates.  

Yes, we may have successfully kept this planet alive up to and past the year 2022 but watching Soylent Green, I can't help but fear that the world we live in is precariously balanced and would not take much to tip it over into the dystopian hellscape delivered by this movie.

The United States is under the leadership of a man and a political party that puts corporate greed over the ideals of human compassion and dignity.  This is leadership that sees climate change as a hoax and hinderous to economic and political power.  It seems we are too close from turning Soylent Green from a science fiction movie into a damnable documentary. 

About that movie...

The role of Sol Roth is the final film performance of Edgar G, Robinson. The scene of Roth entering the government run euthanasia center  to end his life was done under the shadow of Robinson's own mortality: the long time actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood was dying of cancer.  

The poignant scene where Thorn says goodbye to Roth was also Charlton Heston saying goodbye to Edgar G. Robinson. Those tears were real.  

Soylent Green is powerful and gut wrenching in it's unflinching look at a world where everything than can do wrong is going wrong and the frustrating request of one man to find some small measure of justice in such a world.

Charlton Heston had a reputation for a being an over the top actor but this inclination serves Heston well in his approach to Thorn, one last man who actually gives an actual fuck in a crazy dying world with no fucks left to give.  

In 1973, Soylent Green  won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film.

If nothing else, in the wake of Thanksgiving, Soylent Green makes you thankful that our world isn't quite that bad yet.

And fearful of how close we can be to that kind of world.  

___________________

Coming up on future editions of Movie Time:

tomorrow, a film noir from 1945. 

Next Saturday, Wicked: For Good.

Followed by a 2025 Pixar film and (believe it or not) K-Pop Demon Hunters!

Your Friday Video Link: Skywriting!

The theme for today's edition of Your Friday Video Link: SKYWRITING!!!

First off, the science of skywriting!

Next up, this skywriting pilot has an important question.

Finally, Batman challenges the villainous Shame with the world's longest skywriting message.

Let me end this post with a heartfelt message

And who doesn't?

Back with Movie Time tomorrow!

Remember to be good to one another.   

Thanksgiving Goes To the Birds!

Today is Thanksgiving which is also known as Turkey Day.

Because people tend to eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

Not here at the Fortress of Ineptitude where I'll be serving up a roast chicken and some beef brisket. Turkey is not on the menu.

A turkey who is not on the menu is this turkey named "Goose" who has become a family pet. Goose is a frequent visitor to my Tik Tok "for you page".  

From a turkey named "Goose" to actual geese, here is an animated sequence from Dropout TV where a knight seeks to impress a king.

The king is not so much impressed as horrified.

For animated shenanigans from Dropout TV with Andrea's favorite bit with Sam Reich tormenting Brennan Lee Milligan with a simple game of "Name That Bird".

Happy Thanksgiving to all and remember to be good to one another.  

And Lo There Shall Come No Bananas

 

Uh oh! Yes, we have no bananas!

Also meaning yes we have no blog post.

The blog will be back tomorrow with a Thanksgiving post for the birds and Your Friday Video Link will follow the day after that.

And look for Movie Time on Saturday!

Remember to be good to one another! 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: It's Funny Because It's True

There's a saying in comedy: it's funny because it's true.

And in our current political climate, it has fallen to comedians to keep us apprised of the truth of what's going on in our world.

Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase will look at some of those programs that I watch for laughs and, sadly, the truth.

Have I Got News For You on CNN is a panel show hosted by Roy Wood Jr and features Amber Ruffin, Michael Ian Black and 2 other guests.  The discussion of the week's events are centered around trivia contests and other games.

• "What's the Story?": Wood shows the teams clip packages referencing a major news story from the last week and they have to tell him what they refer to.
• "Offend-O-Meter": Teams receive pictures from an index and have to guess who they are, what they did, and whom they offended.
• "Missing Words": Wood gives the teams headlines with keywords excised and they have to fill in the blanks.
• "Odd One Out": Teams have to guess which picture out of four does not belong.
• "Lie-Curious": Teams are given three biographical statements and are asked which is true.
• "Meet in the Middle": Panellists decide which people share a common characteristic.
• "Caption Contest": Wood gives the teams pictures and asks them to caption them.

Think NPR's Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me but it's on TV.

Here is a compilation clip from Have I Got News For You.

Based on the long running British show of the same name, Have I Got News For You is laugh out loud funny and depressingly accurate about the shit we have to put up with.

"Laugh out loud funny and depressingly accurate about the shit we have to put up with" can also be applied to Late Night With Seth Meyers  and Seth's "A Closer Look" segment.  

Donald Trump calls for Seth to be fired citing his lack of talent and poor ratings.

Seth gleefully relays Donnie's threats and gets comedy gold out of it. 

I am a little worried about Seth.  Much like the Paramount/CBS debacle from earlier this year that led to Colbert's cancellation notice, NBC Universal is in the middle of a deal that needs FCC approval and the chairman of the NBC is not at all shy about exerting the authority of his agency to make der Führer happy.

I also follow The Daily Show for my combo of comedy + tragedy.  While the big draw is Jon Stewart who anchors the show on Monday nights, I'm a big fan of when Desi Lydic and Josh Johnson take on hosting duties behind the big desk.  

What is it about hot chicks wearing neckties? Or is it just me?

I like Josh Johnson a lot, about what, 1,000%?

I don't follow Last Week Tonight With John Oliver regularly. John takes a half hour to skewer the same news Seth does in 10 minutes and my ADHD brain thinks that's too long. 

But when I do bring myself to invest the time to watch one of these episodes, John inevitably gets me laughing but I am also impressed by the level of research that goes into making sure his segments are accurate. It's like watching a 60 Minutes segment except to add in jokes.  

Jimmy Kimmel Live! is still going on despite efforts of Donald Trump and his supplicant FCC chairman to kill it.  

Donald Trump calls for Jimmy to be fired citing his lack of talent and poor ratings.

Jimmy gleefully relays Donnie's threats and gets comedy gold out of it. 

Yeah,  there was that close call when Jimmy was pulled off the air for a few days and damn, it looked like Li'l Donnie had wished really hard and it came true.

Then people started cancelling their Disney+ subscriptions and shit, this is costing Disney real money.

Jimmy was back!

YAY! For freedom of speech! And capitalism.  

Jimmy and his writers come up with some of the best nicknames for Donald Trump.  Here are a few of them.  

• Napoleon Bone-Aspur
• R. Smelly
• Fiberace
• Commander-In-Thief
• Nostra-Dumbass
• El Pork-Choppo
• Count Flatula
• Founding Farter
• Teddy Dozevelt
• Dopey McGropey
• Lepre-Con Man
• Al Ca-Porn
• Julius Squeezer

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert is still on it's death march to a May 2026 date with cancellation despite being the highest rated show on late night network TV and winning an Emmy for best late night show this year.

The official word from CBS is the show costs too much and the ratings are not that great.

It's just a coincidence that the CBS owner Paramount is owned by David Ellison who is a right wing billionaire buddy of Donald Trump who  (you guessed it)....

Donald Trump calls for Stephen to be fired citing his lack of talent and poor ratings.

Stephen gleefully relays Donnie's threats and gets comedy gold out of it. Even if it puts him on the unemployment line.

Colbert might be a dead man walking as it were to his May 2026 cancellation fate but it has not stopped him from mining Trump's lack of competence, ethics and intelligence for wickedly incisive jokes in his monologue.  

Stephen Colbert has been nothing but gracious and professional throughout this ordeal, making him a far better man than the thin skinned orange ogre who can't fucking take a joke.

Let's move on to Saturday Night Live  which in our advancing ages, Andrea and I still watch when it's new. We persevere through sketches about pop culture phenomena we don't understand and musical guests we've never heard of until we get to Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che.

Jost and Che are funny and ascerbic in their jokes about whatever bullshit Trump and his acolytes been up to but it's hard when Seth Meyers and the Daily Show gang has already done a lot of damage to der Führer during the week already.

Thankfully Colin and Michael can turn on a dime because Trump is churning out bullshit on Truth Social 24/7 and he doesn't take weekends off.  

One night we didn't have to wait until after midnight to get to Colin. Here's the cold open when Colin plays Pete Hegseth.

"OUR MILITARY IS GAY AS HELL!!"  

I call Colin Jost Andrea's boyfriend which Andrea does not care for but it's OK if I can get Scarlett Johansen in the bargain. 

Getting under der Führer's fat wrinkly thin orange skin is 

James Austin Johnson who does Donald Trump on the show. 

FUN FACT:  Johnson began his acting career starring in independent Christian films. (He's moved on from that.) 

Johnson's take on Trump is less a caricature and more of a fully evolved character who revels in his insane excesses and slips into occassional lapses of realizing how fucked up he's made everything then lapses back into not caring about that. 

Johnson is good at other stuff besides Trump.  Check out this sketch where Johnson plays an airline pilot with questionable life choices that he shares with the passengers.

If you can ignore Nikki Glaser botching her lines, I thought that was a very funny sketch due to James Austin Johnson's deadpan delivery.  

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

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

Marjorie's "Bye Y'all" To Congress

On Friday, Marjorie Taylor Greene announced her resignation from Congress effective January 5th, 2026.   

Donald Trump greeted the news with grace and dignity.

...

...

Yeah, I'm just fucking with you. 

Here's what Li'l Donnie had to say about this.  

“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown, because of PLUMMETING Poll Numbers, and not wanting to face a Primary Challenger with a strong Trump Endorsement (where she would have no chance of winning!), has decided to call it ‘quits'.”

“I think it’s great news for the country. It’s great.”

So Li'l Donnie is still trying to make that changing her last name from "Greene" to "Brown" thing work.

Dude, it's not landing like you think it is.  

Let's remember that Greene was one of Trump's most devoted acolytes in his MAGA cult.

This is Marjorie Taylor Greene decked out in MAGA gear cheering on der Führer at his 2025 State of the Union speech.

Things went south for Greene when she persisted in her calls to release classified documents related to late sex trafficker and Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein. 

She took issue with Trump's characterization of the Epstein files as a hoax and stood publicly and defiantly with the women who were victimized by Jeffrey Epstein and his partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell. 

And while she was at it, Greene also took issue with Trump's handling of the recent government shutdown and the lack of a Republican plan to help people who are losing subsidies to afford health insurance policies.

She even argued that Trump had abandoned America. “If I am cast aside by MAGA Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.”

When did Marjorie Taylor Greene become....  sensible?

It bears recalling that Greene was big on outlandish conspiracy theories.

Remember the one about forest fires being caused by Jewish space lasers?

Greene discovered what all Trump loyalists discover. 

Loyalty to Trump must be absolute with NO exceptions. Did you support der Führer 99% of the time? Trump will focus on the 1% you didn't. And loyalty to Trump does not buy any guarantee of reciprocation. 

So Donald Trump and snivelling sycophants like Speaker of the House did their damnedest to stop the release of the Epstein Files.  

Then after the House and the Senate passed a bill mandating the release of those files, Trump and his lackeys like press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed he wanted to release the files all along. 

But Donald Trump is mad at Marjorie Taylor Greene for demanding the release of those files.

Oddly enough, do you know who Li'l Donnie isn't mad at?

New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdami. 

Trump and Mamdami met in at the White House on Friday and Fox "News" was salivating on the big throw down between der Führer and the godless heathen Communist Mayor of NYC. 

Oh yeah, Trump's gonna show him what's what! It's gonna be epic! 

What they got was this:

“The better he does, the happier I am, I will say. There’s no difference in party, there’s no difference in anything. And we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York. And congratulations, Mr. Mayor.”

Trump was all smiles as he heaped gushing praise on Mamdami.

Man, Eric Trump would give up a big toe for a mere moment of the love and affection his dad was raining down on Zohran Mamdami. 

The even bigger love fest Donald Trump had in the White House was with the visiting Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.  You know, the guy American intelligence agencies said ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Donald Trump, Mister America First, threw American intelligence agencies under the bus and said Mohammed bin Salman is a good guy who did not do dat.  

Trump was laughing and smiling and (I shit you not!) holding Mohammed bin Salman's hand.  

While I'm glad that Mamdami got a positive experience at the White House, it does underscore a troubling habit for Donald Trump. He will agree with ANYBODY who is nice to him and is in front of him at any given moment.  As a bully, Trump is used to hurling his insults (like calling Mamdami a "communist lunatic") from a distance. 

Remove that distance and Trump will cowardly acquiesce to whoever has his attention at the moment.  

For the moment, Donald Trump is in love with Zohran Mamdami.

But don't get used to that, Zohran.

Remember Donnie and Marjorie were once very tight.

And he is out of love with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

What a crazy world we live in.

The Danger Is Over (WAIT! What Danger?!)

Here at the Fortress of Ineptitude on Friday night, Andrea and I were fast asleep when our phones began bleating with a blaring and insistent alarm.

What the hell is going on?

We checked our phones and saw this:

Well, nice of the Greensboro PD to let us know the danger was over and we can go back to sleep.

...

...

Wait! What Danger?

Where the hell is Oakswest anyway?

OK, so elsewhere in Greensboro, some shit was going down on Creekwood Drive in the Oakswest neighborhood which is nowhere near the Fortress of Ineptitude.

Apparently a family disturbance was going off the rails big time, necessitating the presence of police, firefighters and EMTs.  

An alert was sent out to the residents of the Oakswest community to chill, stay in their homes and away from the scene of the disturbance on Creekwood Drive.

Eventually, everyone got a handle on whatever was going down on Creekwood which took a very tragic turn.  It seems the horrible incident at the home ended with a murder-suicide.  

Meanwhile....

Someone was tasked with sending all clear message out to the residents of the Oakswest community.

Except...

That someone hit the wrong button or something because....

The message went out to the whole damn county!

The Greensboro PD issued an apology....

Well, fuck their apology! 

People were going online to complain about it! 

It scared the shit outta me, mainly because it almost woke my kid up. A toddler awaken at 2:00AM, I would have politely went and dropped him off at the GPD. You woke him, now he’s your problem!

Yeah WTH was that about? Violently woke my me and my wife up. 

When you have a system that can go out to tens of thousands of people you double check that shit before pressing the button. Mistakes on this scale are unacceptable and it suggests whoever sent the alert doesn't appreciate the number of people this could affect

Now they’re on their Facebook page telling people to “chill” about it and that it was a mistake lol. Like no you scared the crap out of everyone and now I can’t fall back asleep 😭

Others were more sanguine about it. 

Well, all of y’all would be fired too if you’ve never made a mistake in your life. Oh wait you totally have made a mistake before you just don’t have a meaningful job that impacted everybody. It’s OK to make a mistake. Move on in life. You’ll be OK.

I’m just going to turn off all my emergency alerts. I’m never going to rescue an abducted child and if I’m sleeping, let whatever emergency that’s happening, happen. I’m asleep. I clearly don’t give a fuck.

It woke me up and I laughed and went back to sleep. Sometimes things happen.

Which was pretty much our reaction here at the Fortress. 

I rolled back over to go back to sleep but not before checking my phone for any breaking news.

What? Marjorie Taylor Greene is resigning from Congress?!?

Well, that merits some comment.

In another blog post. 

Later, dudes! 

Doctor Who Is Classic: The Ark In Space

It's time again for Doctor Who Is Classic, my recurring posts looking back on the classic era of Doctor Who.

Today's post looks back at a seminal entry in Doctor Who, the second episode of season 12 and Tom Baker's first season.  From 1975 it's The Ark In Space. 

After the standard issue Pertwee era UNIT story Robot for Baker's first turn as the Doctor, writer Robert Holmes sends the Doctor and the TARDIS on an adventure in space AND time with a truly alien threat (Insectoids?!?) and that good old Doctor Who trope, a base under siege.

The Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan arrive in the distant future on ancient space station Nerva that contains thousands of cryogenically preserved humans. 

The space station is an ark designed to help humanity survive a great calamity that wiped out life on Earth. 

Humans that are essentially frozen fish sticks for an invasive insectoid alien species known as the Wirrn.

The Doctor and friends are facing several obstacles:

1) the ark's automatic systems that alternately tries to kill them (LASERS!) or preserve them (Sarah gets pulled into the cryogenic system which involves changing her out of her dress and into a white body suit.)  

2) the slowly awakening humans who realize some weird dangerous shit is going down and really, who are these strange people who have popped up on their space station anyway?

3) the Wirrn who want to EAT THEM! Or transform them into Wirmkind.

It's a big ol' mess and the Doctor has his hands full sorting it all out. 

You know how in modern Doctor Who where Davies and Moffat like to give the Doctor a big speech?  Well, Robert Holmes lays the foundation for those speeches when the Doctor delivers a rhapsodic monologue on the indomitable spirit of humanity. 

We also see the Doctor being snarky to his companions. When Harry says something that is fairly intelligent, the Doctor compliments and insults him at the same time: "Your mind is beginning to work. It's entirely due my influence, of course. You mustn't take any credit."

There's a bit where Sarah has to crawl through a conduit to get past the Wirrn and connect some science doodad in one part of the station to another.  

And she gets stuck.  

And whines about getting stuck.

Well, the Doctor knows just what to say.

"Oh, stop whining, girl. You're useless. Stupid, foolish girl. We should never have relied on you. I knew you'd let us down. That's the trouble with girls like you. You think you're tough, but when you're really up against it, you've no guts at all. Hundreds of lives at stake and you lie there, blubbing."

Which just royally pisses Sarah Jane Smith completely off and she unsticks herself and explodes out of that conduit. 

Where the Doctor greets her warmly with a smile.

DOCTOR: You've done marvellously, Sarah. I'm very proud of you. I really am very proud of you.

SARAH: What? Conned again. You're a brute.

DOCTOR: Me, a brute?

SARAH: Yes.

DOCTOR: Don't be ungrateful. I was only encouraging you. 

(Thanks for the help of Doctor Who transcripts.)  

We also get that classic turn of events in a Doctor Who story where someone makes a valiant sacrifice to save the day. One of the humans being transformed into a Wirrn clings to just enough of their humanity to lead the Wirrn into a space craft that flies away from Nerva and explodes, saving the station and the human race.

The story doesn't quite completely end as TARDIS crew teleport down to Earth so the Doctor can repair some equipment that will allow the ark colonists to repopulate the Earth.

Which sets up the next story, the two part Sontarran Experiment.

This is how season 12 goes with each story connecting to the next. 

The Ark in Space is the first broadcast story from producer Phillip Hinchcliffe  who wanted to broaden the appeal of the show to adults. The Ark in Space demonstrates this with its use of horror, particularly the inexorable transformation of a human into an alien creature. 

Both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat have cited The Ark In Space as a favorite and influential episode.   

The Ark in Space placed 28th in a 2009 Doctor Who Magazine survey ranking every Doctor Who serial to that point in order of preference.

The Ark In Space is a great template for a quintessential Doctor Who adventure written by perhaps the best writer of the classic era, Robert Holmes.

And a strong performance by Tom Baker as the quintessential Doctor.   

When  Doctor Who Is Classic returns in a few weeks, I will post about another Doctor's second adventure.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another.

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Whoops! Almost forgot! 

Happy birthday, Doctor Who! 

The show premiered on this date, November 23rd in 1963.

62 years old and the show still has a future! 

We've got the UNIT mini-series to come and a Christmas special in 2026. 

Doctor Who ROCKS! 

Movie Time:Oklahoma!

It's Movie Time! 

Yesterday saw the long awaited release of the follow up to last year's movie musical sensation, Wicked! 

This movie post.... is not about that.

As I write this, I have not seen Wicked: For Good. Fully intend to but likely not until over the Thanksgiving weekend when the whole family is in town, dog Rosie and her emotional support humans, son Dean and friend Jan.

But with movie musicals in mind, let's roll back time to 1955 with songs by the legendary Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

The wind is whipping down the plain for... Oklahoma! 

FUN FACT: Oklahoma became a state on November 16, 1907!

I was going to do this post on Sunday last week for that anniversary but....

I forgot.  

Take a deep breath!

Now on with the movie!  

Say hello to Curly McLain, a good-natured and good looking cowboy all cleaned and pressed in his cowboy outfit and just about bursting with the joy as he sings, sings, sings!

Oh what a beautiful morning!
Oh what a beautiful day! 
I've got a beautiful feeling...
Everything's going my--

WHAM!

Curly gets hit by a flying cow!

OK, I might be thinking about the movie Twister.

Or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

It's been awhile since I saw Oklahoma.

Hold on, let me check my notes.

...

...

So... no flying cow! 

But poor Curly is gonna get gobsmacked when he arrives at the farm of Laurey Williams and her Aunt Eller. 

Curly wants to take Laurey to the  box social being held that night to raise money for a new schoolhouse. And he has plans to do this up right with a tricked out wagon.

Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry

When I take you out in the surrey

When I take you out in the surrey 

With the fringe on-

WHAM!

Curly gets hit by a flying cow!

Wait a minute.... checking my notes....

Sorry, no cow.

I must express my disappointment with Rodgers and Hammerstein passing up two opportunities to introduce a flying cow.  

Meanwhile, Laurey could not give a damn about Curly and his surrey, fringe or no fringe. Fuck Curly and his fringes.

He comes moseying up to her farm just assuming she's available to go to the box social with him. Well, Laurey ain't gonna put up with that and she would just as soon go to with Jud Fry, the field hand.  

Uh, Laurey, girlfriend, you might wanna step back a bit from that idea.

Jud Fry is a perennially grumpy who is always sweaty and grimy and probably smells bad too.  He's the kind of guy who would be cast as the sex fiend of the week on Law & Order: SVU.

Laurey should not be alone with Jud Fry.

Alas, Curly isn't the only one facing obstacles on the road to true love.  

Will Parker is another cowboy who pines for Ado Annie.  But Ado has the hot and bothers for a roaming peddler named Ali Hakim with also his shiny baubles on his wagon and his tantalizing tales of faraway lands.

Ado is torn between Will and Ali because as she puts it...

I'm just a girl who cain't say 'No'

I'm in a terrible fix!

I always say 'Come on, let's go'

just when I oughta say 'Nix.'

When a person tries to kiss a girl

I know she oughta give his face a smack!

But as soon as someone kisses me

I somehow sorta wanna kiss--

WHAM!

Curly gets hit by a flying cow!

Wait, this was Ado's song! Why does Curly get hit by a flying cow?

It's just funny, that's why.

Also Rodgers and Hammerstein let me down again.

No flying cow.

I ask for so little, just one flying cow. Geez! 

So the town folks stop off at Aunt Eller's farm for a pit stop on their way to the box social.

Gertie, a flirtatious woman with a loud, annoying laugh, flirts with Curly and Curly flirts back to make Laurey jealous. 

It works and Laurey's resolve weakens when Curly asks her again to go with him to the box social.  

Laurey agains refuses, fearful of how Jud will react if she breaks off her date with him.  OK, so NOW she sees that Jud Fry is a perennially grumpy who is always sweaty and grimy and probably smells bad too and is also likely a sex fiend.  

And Jud does in fact threaten Laurey if she goes with Curly. Jud Fry is a master of romance, ain't he?

We get a weird surreal dance dream sequence where Laurey imagines she marries Curly but Jud straight up murders him.

What the hell kind of show is Oklahoma anyway? It's all colorful, bouncy and free spirited fun and then--

WHAM!

Curly gets hit by a flying cow!

No, no, no, no! Not that.

But Jud Fry wanders in from a different violent Sergio Leone western and harshes everyone's mellow.   

On the way to the box social, Jud tries to force himself on Laurey. Before we get too far into Law & Order: SVU territory, Laurey escapes from Jud and goes to the dance alone. 

Jesus, this movie is giving me whiplash.

Hey, what's going on with Ado Annie? Cowboy Will is doing is damnedest to prove he's worthy to be Ado's suitor and Ali Hakim is working double time to prove he's not. Ali is a travellin' man and can't be tied down to one woman.  

There's more to that plotline but we gotta get back to our hellish triangle of Laurey, Curly and Jud.

Jud arrives at the box social* and starts trouble.

*SIDE BAR: what the hell is a box social?

It's a community event, a party/dance that centers around baskets of food prepared by women and then men bid on those baskets to raise money for some cause or another and the men with the winning bids gets to have sex with the women eat the food. 

So Jud shows up and starts bidding on Laurey's basket and Curley makes competing bids. Jud has more money than Curly so Curly starts selling his shit to raise the cash to outbid Jud.

And the town folks are more than willing to pony up premium prices for Curly's shit because man, people fucking hate Jud Fry.

How does the bidding go?

Let's jump ahead in the plot when- 

WHAM!

Curly gets hit by a flying cow!

Sigh.....

No, that is never going to happen. 

What does happen is this...

Weeks later, Curly and Laurey are married. 

After the ceremony, Jud appears and tries to kill Curly, but Curly kills Jud in self-defense. 

The townspeople hold an impromptu trial in Aunt Eller’s kitchen where Curly is found not guilty on account that no one fucking liked Jud and we're all glad he's dead. 

Curly and Laurey leave for their honeymoon, admiring the beautiful morning, smiling at the thought of all the legally sanctioned missionary positioned sexual intercourse they're going to have. 

And we've reached... The End! 

Oklahoma! looks gorgeous, big wide vistas bursting with color. It was the first feature film photographed in the Todd-AO 70 mm widescreen process.

Shirley Jones makes her film debut in the role of Laurey. It's a bit of risk going with a complete unknown in such a prominent role but Shirley more than justifies that risk with her beautiful singing voice. 

Good ol' movie musical standby Gordon MacRae plays Curly with his own powerful pipes and a vibrant personable charm.

Rod Steiger gives it his all as Jud Fry which is part of the problem. I mean, Jud is the bad guy but Rod plays him with such intensity that his performance seems to be part of a whole other movie.  

Charlotte Greenwood and Gloria Grahame make their strong bids to steal this movie in the roles of Aunt Eller and Ado Annie respectively. 

I once saw a high school production of Oklahoma! which was pretty good for a high school production and a bit less rapey than the movie.

In 2007, Oklahoma! was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Other than the abrupt turns in tone whenever Jud Fry is around, Oklahoma! is a fun and entertaining musical.  

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Tomorrow on the blog, it's Doctor Who time! 

And Movie Time is back next Saturday.