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Mar 21 2022
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Movies

Movie Review – The Batman – (2022)

Riddle me this, 3.5 readers.

What’s only going to be read by 3.5 readers and full of SPOILERS?

THIS REVIEW!

(SERIOUSLY, SPOILERS ABOUND)

This isn’t the worst Batman film ever made. I doubt the late 1990s’ Batman and Robin, what with its bat nipple suit on George Clooney, will ever be unseated from that distinction.

It’s far from the best either. 2008’s The Dark Knight has some big shoes that may never be filled while 1989’s Batman, though silly by today’s standards, paved the way for Hollywood to start thinking there might be gold in them thar superhero flicks, so I doubt you’d have any of the Marvel success today without it.

This movie is somewhere in the middle. It’s worth the price of admission, there are some fun twists and turns. However, it’s not something I want to rush to watch for a second time and at 3 freaking hours long, it’s a time commitment. Seriously, the movie is so long that when I walked out of the theater I wondered if so much time had passed that the world had been conquered by damn dirty apes.

My best description? Imagine a noir detective Batman. Like so many 1930s fedora clad private dicks, Batsy narrates the film, explaining to the audience what he’s up to.

It’s also, God help us, millennial Batman. The Caped Crusader fights for social justice and against white privilege (including his own) with his mighty Bat-Fu skills.

There’s even a twist of emo Batman – Robert Pattinson broods with long hair in his face and dark eyeliner.

To the film’s credit, it’s not an origin story. I think Hollywood is finally grasping that we don’t need to see origins of superheroes that we’ve seen a hundred times before. No need to see Mr and Mrs Wayne murdered. No need to see baby Superman’s little spaceship crash in the Kents’ backyard. No need to see Spidey’s Uncle Ben shot by a mugger again.

Yet (SPOILER), the Waynes’ untimely demise(s) feature prominently in the film as part of a larger mystery, so there’s still at least one Hollywood suit out there who is worried there might be one viewer left in the world who doesn’t know Batman became Batman because he’s sad about his dead parents.

Paul Dano brings The Riddle to life in a major creepy way heretofore unseen on film. Past incarnations of the human question mark have always just been a wacky version of The Joker (Jim Carrey’s career making goofball performance in Batman Forever, for example.) Here, Paul Dano plays every millennial’s worst nightmare, the unloved, socially inept incel who broods behind a screen all day, exposing big time dirt on Gotham’s elite with a side of murder and violence to increase online viewer counts. (Gee whiz, even the Riddler gets more readers for his blog.)

Zoe Kravitz is Catwoman though is never called Catwoman, yet she becomes a sidekick/love interest for Batsy as she searches for justice for her deceased friend caught up in the madness. Meanwhile, Colin Farrell is completely unrecognizable as crime boss henchman The Penguin. I literally did not know it was Farrell until I googled it at home. Good performance, yet another handsome guy robbing an ugly guy of an ugly role with the aid of prosthetics and make up. Sigh. If only prosthetics and make up could make an ugly guy handsome, then again who has that much time to sit in the makeup chair every day?

A lot of weirdness. A lot of heavy handed exposition. A lot of telling instead of showing. At times we are spoon fed helpings of backstory and while many films have been able to pull off a three hour run time by keeping you on the edge of your seat, this one doesn’t. By the two hour mark, I wanted to go already.

Though it avoids origin story silliness, it’s still new, early in his career Batman. He makes mistakes. Literally falls on his face at one point. If you came for super awesome grappling hook, zipline, flying around while making it look easy Batman, you came to the wrong place and ultimately…yeah while there’s a decent amount of action but there’s more talking than action.

Andy Serkis plays a believable Alfred. Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) plays buddy cop to Bats, but it almost reminded me of the cheesy 1960s Batman where Batman would work directly with the police while in full costume and no one thought it odd a mystery man in cape and cowl was consulting with the police. Here, everyone does think it is odd, but its like the writers felt there needed to be some obligatory lines like “Hey why are we working with this costumed guy” and so on.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. It’s acceptable but not great. It builds a world that I’m not, at this time, really chomping at the bit to see and it’s not just because I’ve seen it a hundred times before. And I’ll admit, I’m old, and comic book movies are for the young, so maybe the younguns will enjoy Millennial Batman fighting for truth, justice and wokeness.

I would point out though that back in the day, I thought 2005’s Batman Begins was great but at the time, I thought it would just be a one and done. That film paved the way for 2008’s powerhouse the Dark Knight so you never know, with a little tweaking this franchise might (I’ll believe it when I see it) but might just have a masterpiece sequel on the way if everyone plays their cards right.

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Mar 19 2022
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Mar 15 2022
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Movie Review – The Adam Project (2022)

Ryan Reynolds stars as himself, traveling to the past to join forces with…his younger self.

BQB here with a review.

This movie is fun but somewhat basic. It’s typical Ryan Reynolds fast talking funny guy schtick, mixed with some great special effects. Not the most captivating backstory, one of those films you’ll munch popcorn to while it happens but the next day you’ll forget all about it. In other words, it’s standard Netflix fare.

RR stars as middle aged Adam from the future, who travels to the past to evade evildoers of the future who want to abuse the time travel tech his father Louis (Mark Ruffalo) invented. Along the way, he joins forces with his 12 year old self (Walker Scobell doing a pretty funny kid version impression of Reynolds). Jennifer Garner rounds out the cast as mother to the Adams.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy, but not a lot more to say about it.

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Mar 12 2022
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Mar 10 2022
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TV

Movie Review – The Tinder Swindler (2022)

Beware the Tinder Swindler, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of this Netflix documentary. SPOILERS ABOUND!!!

Stories abound of men doing dumb, stupid, even horrible things for a beautiful woman. Smitten men have lost their lives, their fortunes, their reputations, careers, livelihoods, even committed crimes and gone to jail, all in the name of a pretty face.

As my 3.5 readers know, I am absurdly ugly, such that I could describe myself as a bad DNA mix of Ron Pearlman, Steve Buscemi, Willem Defoe and a bulldog and still not begin to describe the depths of my hideousness. While this has led to many crappy aspects of life, I can tell you the one and only good thing is it has prevented me from being hoodwinked by women. A beautiful woman tells me she’ll love me forever if I do X stupid thing? “Ha!” I cry. “That’ll be the day!” I already know no woman could ever love my gargoylish Quasimodo self and thus it would be pointless to jump through her hoops.

Long story short, this documentary posits the hypothesis that rich men are to women what beautiful women are to men. While we should never get bogged down in absolutes as I’m sure there are many women who wouldn’t be foolish enough to lose their wits at the sight of a dude with a big bankroll, there are some members of the fairer sex who throw common sense out the window in the name of a man with a fat bank account.

Think back to all those Disney movies. Does the Princess ever go for a commoner, or does she long to be rescued by…yes, a Prince with a lot of dough? Take away The Beast’s big bottomline and that movie is just a horrid tale about an ugly dog monster man who kidnaps French beauty Belle and holds her hostage. Take away Christian Gray’s fat stacks and 50 Shades of Gray is just a horror show about a weirdo who likes to spank female fannies.

Ultimately, for…not all women but some women…a man with money is their kryptonite. Perhaps this brings us back to our primal caveman days when prehistoric cavewomen would flock to the strongest caveman who could protect them from saber tooth tigers and wooly mammoths. Today, strength and protection take the form of cold, hard cash.

And thus, here is a tale about women who met a man claiming to be the son of a fabulously wealthy Israeli diamond merchant. Simon, as he calls himself, pops up on the Tinder apps of many a lonely lady and when they see his wealth, his fancy clothes, his expensive cars, his personal private jet, his cadre of servants, bodyguards and flunkies, and his globetrotting lifestyle that lets him go from one swanky hotel to the next, they truly believe they have become modern day Cinderellas who have met their Prince Charmings.

Alas, if only these women had consulted a human gargoyle like me, for like the person who sits in the back of a theater showing a horror movie shouting out warnings to the victim about what the baddie is about to do, I found myself shouting at the TV, “No girl! Don’t do that! He’s going to….ugh!”

First, so many of these women get on this dude’s private jet and fly away with him on the first date. My initial reaction is why are these women so dumb to not realize that getting on a stranger’s plane after a first meeting a bad idea? Don’t they know he could very easily fly them to a shitty country where laws don’t apply and they could end up being drugged up, internationally trafficked sex slaves for the rest of their lives? Have these women never seen Taken? Egads.

Luckily, none of them are turned into sex slaves. But they are taken for big bucks. Once Simon woos them, he bombards his lady marks with tales of peril, various reasons why he has lost access to his cash and great dangers that will befall him if the women don’t fork over their dough. These ladies end up not only handing over their life savings, they also take out massive loans, racking up insane credit card debt that they have no hope of repaying, all in the name of…well they think they are saving Simon from peril but in reality, are funding his lavish lifestyle.

The key lie in Simon’s repertoire is to claim that he has “enemies” i.e. he is a rich diamond merchant and various evildoers want to do him in because…I don’t know, he has a lot of money and they want it I guess? At any rate, the S man simply tells his befuddled babes that very bad, naughty men are tracking him through his credit cards, so he has to use theirs but don’t worry…he’ll pay them back.

So, don’t get me wrong. I get that at the end of the day, the con man is responsible for the con. No matter how dumb you think the conned might be, the conner is the one in the wrong who has done a terrible thing.

Even so…yeah, as an ugly gargoyle whose only credit as an ugly gargoyle is an immunity to being conned by a pretty face, I found myself shouting at the TV. “Really, girl? A man that rich claims bad guys are tracking him through his credit cards and so…he needs YOUR credit card? That doesn’t set off a red flag for you? There’s no other alternative for a man that rich? There isn’t like a secure banking service or a security expert or some sort of banking method a man with that much money can use in this type of situation? Borrowing his girlfriend’s credit card and racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt is the only thing he can do? Give me a break.”

I will say part of me gets why the women are duped. Simon appears to have so much freaking money that it seems like it would be easy enough for him to pay the loans back to the ladies. Still, the cynic in me wonders why these women never asked why a man that rich doesn’t have say, the resources necessary to access secure, untrackable credit and ultimately, if that money is a lot to these women, enough to cripple them financially for life, why take the risk? The documentary’s answer is that they do it for love, that they genuinely care for Simon and worry about his safety but…there’s a part of me that wonders if these women saw Simon as their Prince Charming, their lifelong meal ticket who could give them a fabulous lifestyle, so they’d best not question it and do whatever he says, throwing all common sense out of the window.

In other words, if Simon looked like gargoyle old me and had my shitty lifestyle, they probably wouldn’t let me borrow five bucks if I gave them a promissory note signed by the Pope, let alone throw me a life preserver if I were drowning, but they’ll be duped into committing credit card fraud and get stuck with the bill for a handsome man posing as a wealthy adventurer.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. You know, the strongest among us has their kryptonite, the chink in their armor, their Achilles heel, so I am sympathetic to what happened to these ladies. I just…I don’t know. It was hard not to watch this movie and think if I only had like, a tenth of Simon’s looks, if I had a tenth of his fast talking abilities, if I had just a bit of money…I could have some hotties in my life and wouldn’t be so lonely . I would use those powers for good and treat the hotties right but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Que sera, sera.

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Mar 07 2022
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top ten lists

You Need to Know If Your Girlfriend is a Russian Spy – NOW MORE THAN EVER!

Check this out, 3.5 readers. I called it way back on March 31, 2016:

The Russians.

Oh sure, they say they want to be our friends but then as soon as we aren’t looking they kick the Ukraine in the balls and give East Europe a wedgie.

See that? Ahh, if only the head muckety mucks over at NATO HQ had bothered to read my fine blog, we could have avoided Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine and be putting our focus where it needs to be, namely, why the hell does the Academy keep nominating movies we have never seen for the Oscars?

But I digress, 3.5 comrades. In case you missed it, here are the top ten warning signs your girlfriend might be a Russian spy.

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Mar 06 2022
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TV

TV Review – Joe vs. Carole (2022)

Meow, meow, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of the drama based on the wildly popular Netflix documentary, Tiger King.

At the outset, let me ask two questions:

1 – How did Netflix, after Tiger King became so popular, not scoop up whatever rights it needed to produce its own drama based on the documentary?

2 – Did we really need it?

Answer to the second, no, which might explain why Netflix didn’t bother in answer of the first. Then again all these streaming services love money, which is why Peacock did it. Sidenote – this is basically a rare moment where I used my Peacock app.

For the uninitiated, Tiger King is a documentary that takes us deep into the wild and wacky world of big cat ownership. Apparently, unbeknownst to the general public, there has long been a subculture of private, for profit zoo owners who rule their little fiefdoms like kings, raking in bucks from clueless tourists who stop by to cuddle with baby tiger cubs, all the while paying their employees bupkis. These owners tend to be their own personal cults of personality, from Doc Antle who poses as a guru with a harem of hot babes who follow him wherever he goes to Jeff Lowe, an old man who dresses like he just stepped off the set of a 1990s NSync video.

Central to the doc was the feud between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, he being a self-described gay redneck blonde mullet sporting gun toting cowboy who loves to blow shit up and can’t stop marrying young husbands half his age. At one point, he becomes a polygamist when he openly marries two.

Meanwhile, Baskin is a flower crown wearing hippy who operates a not for profit cat rescue shelter, working to put for profit cat owners out of business as she exposes their animal abuse practices. A big subplot of the series is, well, while it is never proven conclusively, there are a lot of, shall we say red flags, that might make one ask questions as to whether she might have had something to do with her ex-husband’s death.

When Carole sets out to put Joe out of business, claiming abusive animal practices, Joe responds with a series of online videos that rake Carole’s reputation over the coals. The feud descends into madness, eventually culminating in Joe hiring a hitman to kill Carole only for the hit to be botched, as Joe botches most things in his life.

Ultimately, the Peacock drama is unnecessary yet fun filler, kind of like those M and Ms you ate before dinner but wish you hadn’t. The steak adds protein, the broccoli adds vitamins while the candy is fun at first but later you get sick and wonder why you bothered with it. At times, it feels like a high school drama club took the main beats of the documentary story line and acted them out.

To the show’s credit, it does give us some new aspects. For example, we see a young version of Joe we never saw in documentary, one where he meets an out and proud gay man while in rehab after a car accident. Said man encourages Joe to embrace who he is rather than hide it, saving him from going down the path of marrying a woman as a beard and denying who he is, a life Young Joe admits would have eventually ended in his own suicide.

Living out and proud allowed Joe to meet his first husband, the only stable and age appropriate relationship he ever had. Together, the duo open a pet store and eventually that venture morphs into the zoo and said husband is such a grounding, stabilizing force in Joe’s life that one wonders if he hadn’t died young, perhaps Joe would have never picked up so many vices and become a respectable member of the community.

Meanwhile, we see Carole’s younger days, being abused by two husbands and while the abuse leaves her with a broken heart, she also grows stronger as she learns to make money and become independent so she never has to rely on a man who might abuse financial power over her ever again. In middle age, she meets dweebish Howard Baskin and its a romance filled with love and support.

Where the show differs from the series is Carole (Kate McKinnon) is portrayed as the hero of the series, with patriarchical misogyny being the true villain (hey it is in every other show these days so why not this one?) The theme is that all these big cat owners have fragile male egos who prop themselves up by owning and imprisoning wild animals who should roam free. If you see some of the footage of Joe and other cat owners, there’s probably a lot of truth to that.

However, the drama does ignore critical aspects of Baskin. While it does raise the question of her ex husband’s disappearance, it paints her as a victim of gossip who is innocent of the allegations whereas the documentary raises some points that…well…let’s just put it this way. They aren’t so conclusive that I would vote to convict her if I were on a jury, but they do leave you scratching your head.

Overall this is the main difference between the doc and the drama. Carole is the hero of the drama while in the doc, she’s painted as just one more weirdo in the world of big cats.

John Cameron Mitchell provides a decent caricature of Joe though one wonders why David Spade, who looks, sounds and has even sported Joe’s mullet in his Joe Dirt character, didn’t get the part he was literally born to play. At least Dean Winters, who made a career playing obtuse, blissfully unaware characters who truly believe they are more awesome than you when they clearly aren’t, won the role he was born to play in Jeff Lowe.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy but unnecessary. You’ll watch it but wish you hadn’t…not that its bad but just because time on earth is so limited and you could have done so many other things.

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Mar 06 2022
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I’m Number 1! I’m Number 1!

My short story, “The Phone Did It” about one man’s cell phone that commits crimes in his name while he sleeps, is the number 1 free technothriller on Amazon today.

Ha! Eat your heart out, Dan Brown!

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Mar 05 2022
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Mar 05 2022
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Movies

Movie Review – The King’s Man (2021)

Wow 3.5 readers. Europe is so fragile all it takes is one dead archduke to eff things up beyond repair.

BQB here with a review of this historical action movie.

I have to say it up front. This one is not as good as the other two in the series. For the uninitiated, the first two installments take place in modern times and follow British delinquent Eggsy (Taron Egerton) as spy Harry (Colin Firth) recruits him into a secret espionage organization and turns him from a wayward punk into one of Her Majesty’s top clandestine agents. Somehow, the films manage to combine zany, over the top slapstick comedy, globetrotting hijinx, action and yes, even heart as we see Eggsy confront his shortcomings to become a better man with the help of characters who urge him to put country over self.

Don’t get me wrong. This film is good and worth a watch. However, it is very serious, often times quite sad and generally lacks the humor that made the first two films great. While it explains how the Kingsman organization got its start, it is set during WW1 which, let’s face it, if you’ve been watching the news lately, humor and raging global conflict are two subjects that do not mix, so you can’t blame the producers for abandoning the yuk yuks altogether.

While I wonder if it wouldn’t have been a greater box office success for the studio to have gotten Egerton and his mates together for a third installment set in present day (history pics tend to not put butts into theater seats) I have to say it did educate me a lot about how WW1 broke out, albet in a comic book fashion. Did you know that Kaiser Wilhelm (Germany), King George (England) and Tsar Nicholas (Russia) were cousins? I did not know that. The movie suggests the Great War had its roots in the era when the boys would play fight war games under the disapproving eye of their granny-in-common Queen Victoria of England.

Anyway, the plot? Lord Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) was once an adventurous do-gooder, using his vast family fortune to intervene in war, to broker peace and deliver aid whenever possible. Alas, when his wife is shot during one such junket during The Boer War, he cloisters himself in his estate, vowing to shield his son Conrad (Harris Dickinson) the only family member he has left, from harm.

Alas, when World War 1 breaks out, Orlando realizes he can’t stay on the sidelines anymore. Young Harris sees war as a chance to prove his mettle and find great honor, despite his father’s protestations that there’s nothing but pain and bloodshed and no greatness to be found. Rather than let Harris go it alone, Orlando braves the world again as father and son go on a whirlwind adventure, from Russia where they take on the villainous Rasputin to other Euro locales where history’s greatest baddies are conspiring to commit heinous deeds most foul.

Along the way, they found the King’s man organization, meeting out of a tailor shop, recruiting other “knights of the round table” and relying on the assistance of a vast network of domestic servants who overhear what their powerful bosses are up to and report the dirt back to Oxford’s housekeeper Polly (Gemma Areton) with backup from butler Shola (Djimon Hounsou).

STATUS: It’s a good film that I fear will probably be swept under the rug. Lots of action. Great special effects. You will learn a lot about history. Obviously, much license is taken with the facts but if you weed through the chaffe you’ll pick up some tidbits of info here and there. I’ve always found WW1 to be quite complicated and this film did a better job of explaining how it happened (if you can look behind the comic bookish bits and realize the real scoop.)

Alas, the movie’s downfall is it’s not funny like its predecessors. Understandable because again, watch the news as of late and you’ll find yourself not laughing, but it doesn’t quite fit with the other two hilarious films in the series. Quite good as a stand alone.

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