Monthly Archives: April 2020

Apr 18 2020
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Movies

BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Night Shift (1982)

Jumpin Jack Flash, 3.5 readers.

BQB here and my corona movie marathon continues, taking the time to watch movies I otherwise probably would have never seen again.

This time it’s the 1982 comedy “Night Shift” starring Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton.

Winkler plays chuck, a financial genius who gave up his job as a stock broker because he couldn’t handle the stressful, fast pace of Wall Street.  He trades his shot at big money for a job working the night shift at the city morgue.  For a wimpy, wishy washy man who won’t stand up for himself, it’s the perfect gig.  No supervisors, very little to do and the customers, well, they’re dead so they can’t complain.

You’d think he’d be happy to live a quiet life but still, there’s something burning inside him.  His mother nagged his father into an early grave, and he fears he will meet the same fate at the hands of his bossy fiance, Charlotte.

All this changes when Chuck’s new morgue coworker, Billy Blaze (Michael Keaton) comes on the scene.  While Chuck worries about everything, Billy worries about nothing.  Billy is a schmuck, but he fancies himself a fast talking con man.  He quickly sees that when there’s no bosses around at the morgue, this is his chance to run scams out of the office.

Many of those scams fall flat until Billy learns that Chuck’s neighbor, Belinda (Shelley Long) is a prostitute.  She and her fellow ladies of the evening are out of luck, as their rare benevolent pimp, Franklin, who watched their backs, has been put on ice by the local mob.

Scared that he’ll end up like his old man, Chuck takes a risk for once in his life and joins Billy in running a prostitution ring out of the morgue.  Billy drives the ladies and arranges the “meetings” while Chuck handles all the money, managing the moolah so well that the ladies become rich beyond their wildest dreams.

All seems to go well until Shelly and Chuck fall in love and well, Chuck will have to figure out whether it’s easier to stand up, be a man, and take more risks, or if he’ll sit back and let others push him around.

This movie was always on when I was younger and obviously, I didn’t understand the plot other than it was just two guys acting silly.  Prostitution and crime aside, there is a message buried somewhere in there about standing up for yourself, not letting yourself be bullied, being willing to take the risks.  Maybe you’ll get what you wanted but if you don’t, you tried, so accept the consequences and move on.

Sounds dumb, but I recall this movie being the first example where I realized what actors can do.  I had always known Winkler as “The Fonz” on Happy Days, the low voiced cool guy with the leather jacket who always gets all the chicks.  Yet in this movie, he’s a mousy, mealy mouthed man who is afraid of his own shadow.

Amazing transformation, but I hate to say it, unless I’m forgetting a role somewhere, Winkler pretty much stuck with playing wimpy dudes, with The Fonz being his once chance to play an awesome dude, and this movie being the one chance to be a wimpy guy that we all felt for, maybe even saw a little bit of ourselves in.  You may think you’re not a wimp, but how many slights do you put up with a day, just to avoid causing trouble?  Probably more than you realize.

Keaton is great too, playing a dopey slime ball.  He’s got that long hair where he’s going bald up front in this one and as I watched it, I thought, huh, the 1980s was the last decade where a man with a receding hairline could be recruited to play Batman.  Not knocking Keaton’s looks, it’s just, there was a time period in Hollywood where people didn’t get knocked for being human.  Bad hair is something many of us suffer from.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  Directed by Ron Howard, Winkler’s buddy Ritchie Cunningham.  Shelley Long seems too intelligent to be a prostitute, though the underlying premise is that life is hard and a lot of people have to do a lot of things they don’t want to do just to get by.  Bonus points for Rolling Stones music as Billy is a fan and plays their tunes throughout.

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Apr 17 2020
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BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Judgment Night (1993)

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My coronavirus movie marathon continues, 3.5 readers.

This one wasn’t all that cheesy.  I thought it was pretty good as a kid.  As an adult it seems a little goofy but overall, it’s solid and has a simple lot.

Four friends, Jeremy Piven, Cuba Gooding Jr, Emilio Estevez and Stephen Dorff step outside of their suburban Illinois lives, borrowing an RV to go to a boxing match in Chicago.

A traffic jam causes them to seek out a shortcut, which leads to a wrong turn, which leaves them in a bad neighborhood where they witness a murder.  From thereon, the movie is a chase flick, as drug dealer Fallon (Dennis Leary) and his band of goons pursue the pals in an attempt to get rid of the witnesses.

There isn’t a lot in the way of character development.  Everyone gets their brief moment to shine but the movie primarily focuses on the chase and we don’t get to know the characters all that well, though we get a brief glimpse.

Piven, who was typecast as the douchebag friend in every group who eventually screws over the group with his douchebaggery plays true to form in this, the rich son of a stockbroker who tries to talk his way out of a situation where clearly there isn’t any room for negotiation.

Frank (Estevez) is a recently married man who just had a baby, adjusting to his new life as a family man, still shaking off his younger party boy days.  There’s a trace of resentment at having to stay home all the time at the beginning of the film, though by the end he finds a new appreciation for the safety of home.

Cuba starts out mild and ends up wild, almost enjoying “the game” and wanting to take on all the bad guys by himself.

Dorff…is mostly there for moral support.

Comedian Leary was famous for doing his rapid fire, long form rants, just unleashing swaths of anger at a rapid clip.  He has a few moments to do that here, though it’s clear he was held back as no one wanted to turn his criminal character into a stand up comedian.

STATUS: Shelf worthy.  Overall, solid flick.  Worth a watch.  Overall message is we should care more about how the other half lives.  The suburban boys quickly learn that the poor live hard lives and when they are stuck in a bad place, there’s no one to turn to for help, so they have to help themselves.

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Apr 17 2020
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My big book of badass writing prompts is free for the next few days.  Pick up a free copy or better yet, leave a review.  Any help is appreciated.

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Apr 16 2020
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BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – The Warriors (1979)

3.5 readers, come out to play….3.5 readers, come out to play…

My coronavirus marathon of cult movies continues, this time with that gangland classic, “The Warriors.”

Now, I spent most of my adult life never even having heard of this film.  Then it the past few years, I started seeing references to it pop up here and there, people quoting the line when the Warriors are invited to “rumble” or, to “come out to play.”

The plot?  Peace is about to break out amongst all the gangs of New York City.  Cyrus, the popular leader of the Riffs, has called a giant meeting, asking all the gangs to meet him in the Bronx.  In a passionate speech, he points out the gangs are stronger together than apart, that they can do more working together than fighting one another.

It looks like a long lasting truce is about to come to fruition, when he’s shot in cold blood by the Rogues and worse, the Warriors are framed for the crime.

Even worse than the worst, the Warriors have to make a 50 mile trek to the safety of their home turf on Coney Island, forced to fight for their lives against a multitude of street hoodlums, all looking for vengeance on the gang they falsely believe took the life of their savior.

Michael Beck plays Swan, the Warriors’ leader aka their “War Chief.”  He is forced into the unenviable position of having to lead his gang home, not to mention having his authority called into question by his hot headed number two, Ajax, played by a young James Remar, who modern viewers might recognize today as Dexter’s adopted father Harry in Dexter.  It’s possible there are other young actors in this film who went on to bigger, better things but Remar was the only one I recognized.

The movie’s style is gritty, almost as if the producers were trying to say there’s no whitewash here.  We’re showing you gang life in all its sordid, nasty glory.  Except, about five minutes into the film, you get the impression that they’re not really doing that at all.  The uniforms of the various gangs are silly, sometimes downright hysterical.  The Warriors are chased by the Baseball Furies, a bunch of baseball bat wielding, team uniform wearing weirdos.

Do street gangs actually wear such fanciful, perfectly matched costumes in real life?  No.  To the film’s credit, there is a brief reference to the fact that they’re only dressing so matchy-matchy because they’re going to Cyrus’ gang summit and want to wear their colors to represent their turf.  OK.  I guess I can give that a pass then.

Meanwhile, in an early scene at the gang summit, we see fools in all sorts of silly matching outfits, the gang of street mimes being the most memorable.

Is that tongue in cheek?  Probably.  This is definitely a Hollywood version of gang life.  Not so schmaltzy as in West Side Story, where the gangs ward each other off with their fancy dance moves.  It’s definitely rougher than that, though at times, sillier.

I’ll give it this.  The plot is simple and straight and sometimes that can be great in a movie.  The twists are few, if any, and really, it’s just a survival flick.  The terms are set forth early.  They have been framed.  Bad guys who don’t know they have been framed want them dead.  They need to get home before they are killed.  What keeps the bad guys from just going to their turf?  I don’t know.  Rules and reasons, I guess.

Obviously, there are plenty of things that don’t fly today.  The Warriors are pretty quick to label each other with “the F word for homosexuals” at the slightest sign of weakness.  Oh, and they’re a Native American themed gang with nary a Native American within its ranks, so there’s that.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  SPOILER ALERT:  There’s a scene where a group of ladies pick up the Warriors and invite them back to their apartment, seemingly on the auspices of offering nookie.  In reality, they trap our favorite gang and attempt to murder them.  I’m proud to say I would never fall for such a rouse, as whenever a woman flirts with me I always, without fail, assume that it’s all just a rouse intended to lead me to my demise.  While none of us know for sure how we will die, I know for me, it will never be because I was tricked into thinking a woman found me attractive.  So, there’s that.

Apr 16 2020
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Daily Discussion with BQB, Uncategorized

Why Politicians Aren’t Motivated to Do the Right Thing

Hey 3.5 readers.

I try to avoid getting political on this fine blog, largely because the Internet/social media has ushered in a whole new era where people debate, not by the Marquess of Queensberry rules of old, but rather like the pro-wrestlers of today.

In other words, in the past, two parties would show up, debate, stay relatively cordial, and then agree to disagree.

Today, it’s pretty much you’ll inevitably say something that offends someone and rather than explain their side, they’ll just conk you on the head with a folding chair, Hollywood Hulk Hogan style.  OK, they won’t use a chair, but they’ll use fighting words.  They’ll get personal and at some point, it will be implied that your mother wears combat boots (less of an insult today than it was 30 years ago, but anyway.)

I digress.

Our political system sucks and politicians aren’t motivated to do the right thing.  TV and social media means the politicians react to the headlines of today, while they are happening right now, and in life, whether it is a disaster or a suspicious lump on your nether regions, what you did in the past to prepare for these sorts of things is more important than what you do once disaster strikes.

Think about your own budget.  Do you spend recklessly?  Maybe you do.  We’ve all been there from time to time.  But still, you have a general awareness that you need to save.  You need to pay bills on time.  You need to keep some money on hand for a rainy day.  Sure, you’ll see nice things and want them, but hopefully, some voice in your head reminds you that it might be easy to charge it on the credit card today, as if that credit is free money, but the bill will come back to haunt you.

Our politicians have zero motivation to NOT spend foolishly.  They have no motivation to prepare for a rainy day.  They have no motivation to keep borrowing low and they definitely have no motivation to keep some money on hand for a rainy day.

Think about the coronavirus.  I hate to break it to you, but we aren’t in a situation where everything is going to open up in May or whenever and we no longer have to worry about catching a dreaded disease.  This shutdown was never about that.  It was a fear that our hospitals weren’t up to snuff, that they didn’t have enough medical equipment, beds, and space to take care of a large influx of sick people.  Thus, if too many sick people flood the system, the medical staff can’t respond to patients fast enough.  This leads to more people getting sick and not being cured and before you know it, wammo.  It’s the Walking Dead world, and we are all Rick Grimes.  Actually, I’m awesome, so I’ll be Rick Grimes.  You nerds will be Shane at best.

Why didn’t the politicians prepare?  Swine flu happened in 2009.  That wasn’t as deadly as corona, but it was still bad.  It was bad enough that it scared Hollywood into making a movie called Contagion where Gwyneth Paltrow’s virus fighting doctor character (SPOILER ALERT) dies and gets his face cut off so her body can be studied for science.

But the politicians weren’t that motivated.  Politicians don’t get applause for making sure hospitals have enough beds.  They don’t get praise for making sure hospitals have enough ventilators.  They don’t get likes for making sure hospitals have enough masks and gloves or space.

Politicians get applause for dissing their opponents.  They get applause for dishing out free money and why not?  If you’re dumb enough to give me your credit card and tell me its ok to spend whatever I want, then  I’ll gladly buy a round of drinks for every schmuck at the bar, take the applause, then stick you with the bill.  Am I going to buy equipment to make sure people can be helped in the event of a crisis?  Pfft.  No.  Where’s the applause in that?

Think about how you run your own household.  You probably have some kind of a budget, even if its in your head.  You keep track of bills and expenses.  Maybe not on a nice flowchart but you have a general idea.  You have an idea of what in your house is broken and falling apart.  You have an idea of how much longer you can use this not so good appliance before you have to cave in and buy a new one.  You want to buy that fancy watch, sweet leather jacket or go on that awesome vacation, but you balance those wants with the needs of maybe some day you’ll need a new dishwasher, or your fear that a pipe will burst and you’ll need to hire a contractor to fix it and you wont be able to if youve spent all your money on comic books and bubblegum.

Unfortunately, politicians look at tax revenue as free money.  Free money to use to reward allies and punish opponents.  Free money to waste and why not because more free money will always come along.  And I hate to break it to you, but the money you give them today was already spent a long time ago.  The nation is being run on loans, or if you think about it, on a massive credit card.

When you see the US helping everyone around the world, that’s nice, until you realize we ran up the credit card to do it.  If you use your credit card to buy your neighbor’s kid an XBox, people will think you’re a nice person…for about five minutes, until everyone realizes your own kid doesn’t have shoes and your credit card bill is so high and your free cash is so low that your own kid will have to run around barefoot.

Overall, I wish there was a better system where politicians of both parties were inspired to keep costs and debts low, and to save, save, save for a rainy day.  To spend money on necessities rather than wants, to prepare for disasters ahead of time.

Long story short, 3.5 readers, unless you poop a crazy amount, you probably were always keeping a few spare rolls in your closet, so when the corona shit hit the fan, you didn’t have to run to the store and do a battle royale with all the people who didn’t keep enough rolls of butt wipe handy.  You did it because you knew you had to take care of yourself.  No one else will.

Politicians don’t think like that.  Spend, spend, spend.  Ignore potential looming disasters.  Someday, some other schmuck will be stuck with the bill and the blame while they’re chilling out on a beach somewhere…with all our toilet paper.

End of BQB rant.  Thank you.

PS – Imagine you are a parent.  You send your kid off to college.  You give them a prepaid debit card and tell them this is for important things only.  Your kid comes home and tells you they spent all their money on booze, parties, and they bought gifts for their dumb friends.  But then they tell you that they don’t have any money for text books, clothes or basic necessities.

Next time a politician gets on TV and tells you they spent your money helping out some OTHER country, maybe remind them that they were supposed to make sure the kids in America had shoes and textbooks and food first.

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Apr 16 2020
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Movies

BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Dead Heat (1988)

Not gonna lie, 3.5 readers.  This one is total garbage, yet the fun kind of garbage…like when you find a fresh eclair sitting on the top of the garbage, right there on a paper plate ala George Costanza and you debate whether or not to eat it.  (Don’t eat it, especially in this day and age.)

My coronavirus 1980s B movie marathon continues with this little gem that honestly, I had forgotten for a long time.

When I was watching “They Live” the other day, it made me think of a scene from a movie I saw when I was a kid where two undead zombie cops, after dying on the job, walk off into heaven, cracking jokes all the while.

For a second, I thought “They Live” was what I was thinking of, but it wasn’t.  So I did a deep dive on google and figured out what I was looking for was the 1988 crapfest Dead Heat.

It stars Joe Piscopo and Treat Williams as Detectives Doug Bigelow and Roger Mortis (cheesy, I know.)  When they respond to the scene of a jewelry heist only to find two masked gunmen who are able to survive despite being shot a ridiculous number of times, they find themselves hopping down a rabbit hole of intrigue, mystery and absurdly dark humor.

Long story short, Mortis is killed during the investigation, only to be brought back to life by the crime ring’s resurrection machine.  Alas, the machine is not foolproof, and Mortis has 12 hours to solve his own murder before he croaks for good.  A running joke is that his face and body fall apart throughout the film.

It’s morbid.  It’s downright sick in some parts.  A strange side trip to a restaurant leaves the duo fighting off undead cow and duck carcasses that were brought back to life after being stored in the meat locker.

Not gonna lie.  The plot is dumb.  The writing is dumb.  The jokes are so corny they are funny.  The special effects are lousy by today’s standards though for its time, not that bad.  Piscopo always got a bad rap as an unfunny comedian but I thought he actually pulled this movie together.

Vincent Price and Darren McGavin of Ralphie’s Dad in a Christmas story fame star as the film’s villains.  At some point, I lost track of what they were up to other than it is some sort of cabal of rich folk paying big bucks so they can live forever.  How that ties in to the undead jewelry robbers is beyond me.

I’ll admit though the movie starts out strong and finishes strong, I found the middle lagging, especially because Piscopo’s character disappears for a good chunk at that time.  At the middle point I found myself yawning and wishing for it to be over, but it redeems itself at the end when Mortis basically becomes a full fledged zombie, running around, absorbing bullets and beatings without a care in the world.

Unfortunately, this is one bad B movie that is probably destined for the toilet of cinema history.  At first, I had a hard time finding it until my smart TV suggested I could watch it for free on some app I’d never heard of called Tubi.  This movie has to be given away just to keep it alive, pun intended.

STATUS:  Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again and I admit, some of these 80s movies seem funnier as a kid only as an adult I look back and think, “Holy shit.  How did I get so old.  Was I really alive when the world looked like this and made movies like this?”

At any rate, it’s worth a peak.  Maybe get up in the middle to get some popcorn and go to the bathroom.  Wash your hands to avoid the COVID.  And Piscopo gets a bad rap because he was good in this.  He has some of the cheesiest jokes imaginable, but he delivers them with great enthusiasm, like he was hired to do a job and damn it, it doesn’t matter if this movie sucks, he’s going to smile and deliver those crap lines with as much gusto as he can.

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Apr 15 2020
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BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Lethal Weapon Series 1-4 (1987-1998)

I’m getting too old for this shit, 3.5 readers.

I’ve been kicking it 80s style during this quarantine, and over Easter weekend, I celebrated the resurrection of our Lord and Savior by watching Riggs and Murtaugh deep six a lot of bad guys who are never coming back.

On the surface, they may seem silly, but these movies really do have it all (well, the first two are near perfect whereas the last 2 are a bit flawed but I’ll get to that).

They’re funny.  They’re serious.  The stakes are high but the laughs are still present.  You’ll laugh.  You’ll cry.  You’ll get to know the cops, their families, friends, hopes, dreams, etc.  They aren’t just cookie cut outs.  They’re fully developed characters, which is rare for an action movie.

Danny Glover plays Roger Murtaugh, an LAPD Homicide detective who, in the first movie, turns 50.  As is his catch phrase, he is “getting too old for this shit.”  In a scene where his wife and kids bring a flaming birthday cake into the bathroom, catching him by surprise while he’s in the tub, we see his elation, that the family he has built nourishes his soul.  When they leave alone, he looks in the mirror and the look speaks a thousand words silently.  He is depressed that he is getting old.  His best years are behind him.  He is mortal and the fear that one day, he might die and lose the family and home he has built weighs heavily on him.

Across town, we meet Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson).  He’s younger than Riggs.  I’m not sure what age he’s playing but if I had to guess, in the early 30s range.  He lives alone in a trailer by the beach, no one but his dog to keep him company.  His wife has died in a car accident.  It’s Christmas.  We see the look of epic sadness on his face.  He sticks a gun in his mouth and as his finger touches the trigger, we see a pained look on his face, like he might actually do it, that at any rate, he is capable of doing it.  Obviously, he doesn’t do it but if you were seeing this movie in the 1980s for the first time, you definitely might have been lead to believe that he was about to do it.

Riggs and Murtaugh join forces and become the ultimate odd couple.  Murtaugh wants to play it safe because he has too much to lose.  Meanwhile, Riggs has no problem being reckless.  Car chases, shootouts and fist fights are his forte.  Murtaugh nags Riggs, urging him to slow down at every turn, like an old woman.  Riggs is like the young son who pushes his old man into living dangerously.

Ironically, they compliment each other.  As the movies wear on, Murtaugh realizes that in addition to being a dad, he is also a cop.  While there’s a part of him that yearns to leave the force behind and live a safe life, surrounded by family while he goes fishing and collects a pension, there’s another part of him that knows he’ll only feel useful when he’s fighting crime, and Riggs brings this side out of him.

Conversely, as we get to know Riggs, we learn he isn’t as crazy as he seems.  Rather, he was a special forces soldier during Vietnam and followed that up by becoming an LAPD cop.  These are dangerous jobs and one does not get results in either profession by not acting a little bit crazy.  It’s not that Riggs wants to die, it’s just that he learns to suppress the fear and tackle it with humor and bad jokes so as to keep from going completely insane.  The Murtaughs become the family he never had.   Roger like his grumpy uncle, Trish like his Mom doing his laundry and cooking for him.  The kids become like his nieces and nephews.  Along the way, he seeks out the family life that he’s missing and builds a life like Roger’s, one that he’s afraid to lose.

The first two are quite solid.  The third and fourth?  I don’t know.  The third takes place in the early 1990s and doesn’t quite have the cache of 1990s action flicks, which were all more or less about ex Vietnam vets becoming cops and crooks and squaring off against each other, using their ‘Nam skills to kick ass and settling old scores.  Mix in the coke dealers and the fast and loose lifestyle and I don’t know, all that kind of became blase in the 1990s.

Riggs falls for lady cop Rene Russo in the third film and starts a family with her in the fourth.  By 1998, Danny and Mel seemed way too old to be running around getting into fights and car chases, though they address that by embracing the getting too old for this shit line.

Don’t get me wrong.  Three and Four are worth watching, but the real magic rests in 1 and 2.

Not everything holds up.  There are some things that don’t fly today.  Riggs and Murtaugh make fun of Trish’s cooking throughout the series, whereas today the idea of poking fun at a woman’s culinary skills as though this somehow makes her less worthy isn’t kosher.  I mean, hell, good luck even getting a woman to make you dinner.  If you are lucky enough to have one who will, don’t make fun of her cooking skills.

Riggs and Murtaugh also regularly crack jokes about each other being gay and/or unmanly.  After a bomb blast in the first film, Murtaugh grabs Riggs only for Riggs to push Murtaugh away and call him a “fag.”

So yeah, there are some things that will make the modern viewer cringe but if you can write it off as all being a product of the time, you might be able to still enjoy it.  Maybe not.  I don’t know.

Meanwhile, the series does rest on a number of running gags.  Running jokes include Roger borrowing his wife’s car only to completely fuck it up while chasing bad guys, cursing Riggs the entire time, demanding that he go easy on his wife’s car.  The Murtaugh family home takes a beating throughout the series, from drug dealers driving through it with their cars to a toilet explosion in the second film ( a highlight of the series to be sure.)

Joe Pesci is added to the series in 2 as Leo Getz, a slimy accountant turned witness who whines incessantly, yet often comes up with sleazy ideas that help Riggs and Murtaugh catch the crooks.

Overall, it’s a great series that really captures two ways of looking at life.  You can be a Murtaugh and live in fear of losing it all, or be a Riggs and laugh in the face of danger lest you dwell on it and let the fear eat you up inside.

SIDENOTE: It always saddened me when Mel went on his racial tirades.  I didn’t want to believe it at first but the way the racial words roll off his tongue in various recordings, adding in the fact that he was given so many chances to redeem himself yet kept saying such things makes it clear that unfortunately, a lot of this crap was in his heart all along, which it makes it odd when you watch Riggs because that character is so far from being a racist.  Part of me wants to chalk up Mel’s tirades to him becoming an angry old man but I don’t know, there are ways to be an angry old man without invoking all kinds of racial epithets, thus making it hard to believe these bad thoughts weren’t with him all along.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Apr 14 2020
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BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – The Money Pit (1986)

Hey 3.5 readers.

Your old pal BQB here with another review as we continue the corona quarantine hullabaloo.

This movie was on all the time when I was a kid.  I thought it was funny then and so it was cool to see it is on Netflix today.

The premise may be near and dear to the hearts of every first time home buyer.  After all, the sequence of events goes like this:

  1. You need a place to live.
  2. You find a place you like.
  3. You do your best to inspect the place you like, but inevitably, the homeowner will do their damndest to hide any and all defects so as to avoid paying to fix them, essentially passing the buck to you, the buyer, then playing dumb when you notice it after you moved in.
  4. At that point, maybe you have a case, but in most instances, you’ll spend more time and money on suing the original owner than you would on just paying to have the problem fixed.
  5. You’ll hire a contractor.  The contractor will take your advance payment, and then once they have their money, you will be lucky if you see them before the next ice age.  You can’t hire someone else because you already sunk money into them.  You can’t get too snippy with them because they might walk away and ultimately, most contractors will make you wait so you ultimately just have to live with the hole in your roof, or in your ceiling or dry wall until the contractor takes pity on you…or has spent your initial money down and realizes they need to show up and do some work before they get paid again (unless you were an idiot who paid it all up front in which case, you will never see that contractor again.)

Tom Hanks and Shelley Long made an entire movie about this!  They play Walter and Anna, a young couple who try to make a go of it in a new home, only to get duped by the previous owner.  The majority of the movie is dedicated to wacky hijinx – exploding ovens that shoot turkeys through the air, wiring that sets the house on fire, stairs that fall apart while Walter is walking on them, leaving him to do action movie style jumps to the ledge.  Walter takes the brunt of the beatings, getting knocked in the head by all manner of flying debris.

As unscrupulous contractors take their money and then promise the house will be fixed within two weeks for way, way, way longer than two weeks, the couple is pushed to the breaking point, and they will struggle to keep their sanity and relationship afloat.

Bonus points to Alexander Godunov, that long haired 80s villain who plays Anna’s cheating ex-husband, the cad who tries to take advantage of the situation, hoping to steal Anna back.  I didn’t realize it as a kid, but as an adult I instantly recognized him as the dude who played German terrorist Karl aka Hans Gruber’s right hand henchman in Die Hard.  Yes, he was the villain who helped Sgt. Al Powell realize that he could raise his gun to shoot again.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Apr 14 2020
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BQB’S Classic Movie Reviews – They Live (1988)

I’m here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, 3.5 readers.  And I’m all out of bubblegum.

So, the obvious downside of the coronavirus is that it has left the world in utter turmoil.

But hey, the good news, is I’m watching a lot of movies I never would have had time for.

One such flick is “They Live,” the 1988 B-Sci Fi cult movie that really, really deserves more props than it gets.

It stars infamous wrestling heel, the late Rowdy Roddy Piper as Nada, a homeless drifter who wanders into town, looking for work.  He’s been downtrodden his entire life, from a shitty upbringing, to being constantly laid off and out of work, despite trying his best and never turning down work when he’s lucky enough to find it.

When he finds a construction job, it looks like he might make it, thanks to a church that provides food and help to the homeless.  While taking advantage of the church’s help, he meets Frank (the infamous and awesome Keith David), another down on his luck construction worker who had to leave his wife and family behind just to find work.  He lives the homeless life so he can send money back home.

Both men commiserate, lamenting how hard it is to get ahead.  While Nada still believes in the American dream, Frank argues the whole system is a scam.  If you aren’t born into wealth, then you’ll spend your whole life working hard and getting little in return for it, as though the system is a parasite that feeds off you.

Turns out, Frank was right but not how he thought.  Nada learns that the church is a front for a group of underground freedom fighters, people who have discovered that the world is actually run by aliens!  Yes, “They Live” among us, having perfected a means to hide their hideous alien forms by appearing human.

The human freedom fighter group has created a special pair of sunglasses that allows them to see the aliens for what they are, as well as the subliminal messages hidden in advertisements, billboards, and on TV.  When Nada pops these shades on, he realizes that the whole world is a lie, that alien bastards run it all and that elite aliens are sucking up all the world’s resources, turning big profits while lower class humans work their lives away, never getting ahead.

It’s all basically an allegory for the way the world, more or less actually works.  Funny, the movie was basically considered the silly, over the top Sharknado of its day, but for a flick headlined by a wrestler, there’s a lot that rings true, even today.  The movie’s entire premise, if you forget the aliens, is that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the working middle class never fights it because they want their piece of the pie, so they help the upper class do things that hurt the planet for fear of losing their income.

There are scenes that are downright crazy.  Plotholes abound and Nada pretty much goes on an instant murder spree when he puts on the glasses.  He starts gunning down every alien he can find, never even taking a second to think about possible strategies.  He doesn’t even take a second to think about whether it is moral to kill beings just because they are aliens.  It’s just, “Boom!  These guys are ugly!  They have to die!”

Cheesy lines?  “Lady, your face looks like someone shoved it in the cheese dip in 1957 and left it there.”

Ah, good times.  But seriously, whenever you heard anyone say something like “I’m here to pass out candy and ass kickings” or something to that effect, this is where that line came from.

Not to mention the absurdly long fight scene between David and Piper that goes on way too long, that was eventually parodied by South Park.

Anyway, it’s fun and despite overt silliness, has a message about corporate greed and how we all might be complicit in it because we all eventually sell out and take our little sliver of pie and turn a blind eye to the evildoings of our corporate overlords for fear of losing that sliver.

Piper is stiff, almost comically so, but somehow fits the character.  The irony is if this flick had starred a Schwarzenegger or Stallone, it would probably be constantly watched even today.

It’s funny.  I remember when I was a little kid, my local video rental store (Those places once lived) had a poster for this movie hanging up for the longest time.  As a kid, it looked scary to me, so it’s funny it took me like 30 years to finally watch this.

One last compliment – as the film went on, it got towards the end and I felt like, “Hmm, this was a lot of exposition without really going anywhere” but then sure enough, there’s a great ending that is shoehorned in out of left field and I can’t think of a better way this could have been wrapped up.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Apr 11 2020
3 Comments
Tomfoolery, Uncategorized

I Speak for the Bat

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I Speak for the Bat

(The Long Awaited Follow-up to I Speak for the Pangolin)

By: Bookshelf Q. Battler

Based on the Lorax

My name is BQB and I speak for the bat.

I don’t speak for the cat or the rat.

I speak for flying rodents.

For it’s the decent thing to do,

To make sure you’re not eating a winged hamster,

Covered in guano poo poo.

Yes!  My name is BQB and I speak for the bat.

They’re tiny and small and have wings that go flap, flap, flap, flap.

Bats have no place in your stew and don’t belong in your pot.

If you’re sticking a bat in your mouth at this moment, I am begging you to stop.

Bats do not taste like candy.  Bats do not taste like chicken.

If you pack a bat for your lunch, it’s the entire world that you will sicken.

Bats don’t taste good with hot sauce and they don’t taste good with ranch dressing.

Eating bats leads to worldwide quarantines, and that’s a state of life that’s oh, so very depressing.

Bats belong in the sky.  They don’t belong in your deep frier.

Eating bats can spread disease, not to mention turn you into a vampire.

Don’t ever put a bat on your spatula,

Or else you’ll end up like Dracula.

Don’t put a bat in your deep frier.

Trust me, for I am not a liar.

Hey!  I am BQB and I speak for the bat.

Bats don’t belong in your Happy Meal.

How many times must I tell you that?

Bats were born to flutter,

Not to be slathered up with peanut butter.

Am I really going much too far,

When I remind you to never eat an animal that can navigate via sonar?

Bats have no place in your fondue and should never be in your microwave.

When you are free of bat dinner, what will you do?  I know! Go dance in a rave!

Bats are smelly and dirty and are like little blood sucking psychotics.

Eating them will unleash a global plague that can’t be cured by common antibiotics.

So please, I’m asking you to never eat a bat.

You’ll get the world sick, and the economy will go splat.

In closing, I say that I am BQB and I speak for the bat.

Bats belong in caves.  It’s their natural habitat.

Bats don’t belong in a face.

It’s just common sense.

So save the human race,

Before we all become past tense.

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