BQB almost missed podcasting this month because he was enjoying a vacation in sunny Orlando, Florida, hobnobbing with Mickey Mouse and eating pineapples under palm trees and such.
But he came back just in time to entertain his 3.5 listeners.
Here, the world renowned poindexter reads the first chapter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
Who would think that a simple stick left in a waiting room would lead to so many deductions? We learn Holmes’ investigatory process, namely, how he can observe an item and find details and information everywhere, where others would not notice anything. Simple little clues about the stick tell Holmes so much about its owner.
Watson believes he has received a compliment from Holmes, i.e. that the great investigator has applauded the good doctor’s observations about the stick but rather, as the chapter moves on, we learn that Holmes says that Watson is not a genius, he is not a source of light but rather, a “conductor of light.”
So…that’s a really nice way of telling Holmes that he was wrong but by being so wrong he helped Holmes figure out what was right.
Oh, the joys of being small! I know all about small things. For example, my audience is a mere 3.5 readers. Don’t even get me started on what’s in my pants.
BQB here with a review of “Downsizing.”
What if all of your problems, and coincidentally, all of the world’s problems, could be solved by a simple invention?
In the world of this film, “downsizing” or the process of turning humans very, very small, has been invented. At first, the idea sounds ridiculous, but then when you think about it, if it worked, it might not be a terrible idea.
Got money problems? You don’t anymore. Can you afford a box? That’s a mansion for a tiny person. Can you buy one bottle of vodka? Cool. That’s a lifetime booze supply. Drive a car the size of a toy, nourish your body on mere crumbs and international travel is as easy as being shipped in your very own, comfy little box.
And what a boon for the environment! Why, an entire tiny city’s supply of trash made in four years can fit in a single garbage bag!
Amidst this backdrop lives Paul Safranek (Matt Damon), a down on his luck occupational therapist who, due to a string of bad luck, missed out on all his lifelong dreams and struggles just to make ends meet.
Downsizing has become all the rage, marketed heavily to the masses as a way to live like a king for pennies on the dollar. When life becomes a daily grind, Paul and wife, Audrey (Kristin Wiig) decide to shrink themselves and move to the tiny community known as Leisure Land, where they are promised that they will be able to live like movie stars in their own luxurious estate, only with the $150,000 they are able to raise from selling their modest home in the big world. Turns out that sum is equal to $12 million bucks in tiny town.
Seems to good to be true? Well, I don’t want to give it away. The first half of the film is devoted to just showing a lot of fun things that might happen if the world were to get small. At first, it’s a concept driven film, discussing all of the ramifications of miniaturization and to the writers’ credit, they get in deep, discussing not just the fun parts but also the ethical ramifications as well as the potential for abuse by unscrupulous characters (one such fellow being Paul’s new neighbor, a smuggler played by Christoph Waltz.)
After the coolness of seeing mini people live their lives wears off, the film struggles to find a plot, or any sense of meaning. Celebrity cameos come and go – Jason Sudeikis, Neil Patrick Harris, etc. A cleaning lady, Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), helps Paul find meaning in his new existence.
Eventually, I ended up hoping that someone would come along and downsize the film’s running time. Will there be a villain? Will there be some downside to downsizing that was heretofore unexpected? Will the proverbial other shoe ever drop?
You spend so much time being wowed by the awesomeness of smallness in the first half that you feel invested and have to press through the second half but alas, like a botched Mexican shrink job where an unshrinkable filling is left inside the shrinking patient’s head, I too ended up wishing my head would explode just to get the film over with already.
There was some potential here and although protecting the environment is important, I think the film starts off with a fun message (i.e. perhaps science might find a fun, awesome way to save the environment) but then descends into preachiness (you’re ruining the earth with pollution and Matt Damon feels really, really bad about it, you suck bag.)
And yes, you are, but you know, I came for the entertainment, not for Matt Damon’s melancholic ennui. If he’s worried about the environment, he can take one less private jet ride per year.
Sigh. I just think like, I don’t know, a more dramatic turn, like a psycho villain who wants to stomp on little people towns or something might have given the film more pizzazz but nope, they just focused on the melodrama.
STATUS: Stay for the first half. Feel free to downsize the second half by changing the channel.
Bill Cosby, “The Coz” is headed for the slammer, the hoosegow, the stoney lonesome.
It’s sad. For you younger 3.5 readers, you may not realize this guy was once America’s Dad and that was a big achievement because, you know, he was black and that was a new thing at the time. There weren’t a lot of good TV roles for African Americans at the time and then suddenly you’ve got this show full of positive role models for anyone, black or white, to look up to.
The Cosby Show was riotously funny for its time, managing to transcend racial lines to discuss issues about family, growing up, teaching kids to take responsibility for their lives, education, doing the right thing etc yet somehow it managed to do so with humor and without being overly preachy.
My favorite episode is the one where young son Theo claims to have it all figured out, he’s going to drop out of school, not go to college, fend for himself and Cosby shows him via Monopoly money just how much the world is going to take from him if he doesn’t push himself to reach his full earning potential. “Are you going to have a girlfriend?” “Yep,” Theo replies and then wham, Bill takes the money and leaves the kid with nothing.
Plus, he sold Kodak film (product that eventually became irrelevant), New Coke (people demanded a return of the old coke) and pudding pops (which were freaking delicious and does anyone know if they still make them? I want one right now that I am thinking about them.)
Sigh. It is sad that apparently while he was doing so much good he was also apparently drugging ladies and taking advantage of them…I guess people think that fame will help them get away with so many bad things but it finally caught up with him.
Dave Chapelle put it best. Imagine something you really love, like ice cream, then imagine hearing that thing is a rapist. Damn, ice cream is a rapist. Now I can’t enjoy ice cream anymore.
#201 – Girl, I’m going to rock your world. But first, excuse me while I change my colostomy bag. It’s full.
#202 – Bend over and let me come over.
#203 – I’m ridiculously potent. In fact, I’ve impregnated over 350 women just by looking at them. Come to think of it, you’ve probably got a bun in the oven right now. Enjoy!
#204 – Did I just fart? Yes. Am I proud of it? Most indeed.
#205 – Are you a stripper? Can I catch you later? I’m all out of ones.
#206 – That’s not me. That’s just a roll of quarters in my pocket. I’m going to do some laundry later.
#207 – If they can put a man on the moon then surely we can put this man in your poon.
#208 – Funny, I never would have looked at you twice a decade ago but in the last ten years I lost my job, my hair, my waistline and my pride so…let’s get down baby.
#209 – You, me and a jar of mayo makes three.
#210 – Come, my dear. Let us spread our naked bodies with potato salad and writhe on the grass in the moonlight.
I loved playing “Rampage” as a kid. Well, if you’re like me and want to play it again…I’m surprised I missed this but as a promotion for the movie with “The Rock” a site was made that allows you to play the classic version of the game right in your web browser.
Punch buildings, eat humans, and go crazy as a giant gorilla, lizard or wolf:
I write an ongoing column on this fine blog called, “Is Comedy Dying?” where I lament how the “rush to offense” culture is tearing down comedy and not replacing it with anything good. What passes for comedy now is just going to be Samantha Bee yelling at me about her political views, John Oliver snarking at me about his political views, and Amy Schumer making yet another dumb movie where she’s like, “Hey guys! I’m a drunk slut who acts like an idiot but nice guys should like me or else they’re super mean, right?”
I digress. On the surface, I get why an American of Indian descent might not be a fan of Apu, the owner of the Quick-E-Mart on “The Simpsons.”
On a deeper level though, those who watched the show regularly are aware that a) Apu is often the most intelligent resident of Springfield b) he’s an immigrant who built himself up into a businessman c) he suffers casual racism from incompetent Springfield boobs regularly with dignity and grace, often helping those who hurt him and d) he might as well be the one making money selling Homer outdated snacks because if he weren’t doing, Homer would just drive his fat ass to another convenience store and if anything, the scenes where Apu crosses out the date on expired products only for Homer to eat them and get sick is more about how chubby Americans suffer a love affair with junk food and are willing to make the worse decisions about what to shove in their holes.
I get the complaints – Hank Azaria isn’t Indian, some Indian Americans lament that when they were growing up they were called “Apu” or subjected to catch phrases like, “Thank you, come again” and so on.
But I don’t know. Look at the rest of the show. If we’re getting rid of Apu, then we also have to get rid of Bumblebee Man, Groundskeeper Willie, Uter the Chubby Exchange student and so on. From Chief Wiggum, the fat donut chomping cop to Principal Skinner, the uptight, bureaucratic educator, every character is essentially a stereotype because that’s what cartoons are.
I get that people get offended but good comedy offends everyone, eventually. There’s humor in everyone, everywhere. If anything, comedy is fair when it offends everyone, when sooner or later, it pokes fun at anyone and everyone and leaves no one behind.
At the very least, can we really harangue the Simpsons creators for doing something that was considered OK 30 years ago?
I don’t know. I do get the complaints. I don’t want people to feel bad. Still, I don’t know how the Simpsons continues if these are the constraints we are working under now.
It makes me a little sad and ready to throw in the comedy towel, to just let the snarky Manhattanite comics take the whole thing and ruin it all with their high falutin, brie cheese sniffing jokes that only three people get. That’s fine. Let’s just go ahead and get the Simpsons cancelled then. What really need is 16 more movies where Amy Schumer laments that she can’t find a man who will accept her drunken sluttyness, more of John Oliver and Steve Colbert making my eyes glaze over with their policy talks, more of Samantha Bee yelling jokes at me that her writers room nerds thought were funny so ergo, I should find them funny.
I’ll be at the bar, 3.5 readers. Tell me what you say in the comments below.
As a zombie fan, I’ve been hearing mumblings about this movie in the nerd-o-sphere for awhile now. It’s foreign, the characters speak Korean and it’s in subtitles, but foreign language films don’t necessarily stop me as long as the subject matter is something I’m interested in. Personally, I prefer to read the subtitles and that combined with listening to the tone of voice and facial expressions I can get the gist of what’s going on even though I don’t speak the same language as the actors. Funny how there are some things that transcend language barriers.
Anyway, in many ways, it’s a typical set-up. Mom is divorced from Dad, Seok-woo (Yoo Gong), ostensibly because he works too much in his job as a stock broker, and apparently no matter where you are in the world, wanting to work hard is considered a crime by the ladies but that’s ok. My review doesn’t need to be spoiled by my personal baggage.
Young daughter, Soo-an (Su-an Kim) misses her mother, who lives in Busan, and wants to cut her visit to her father’s home short. After much wrangling, Dad concedes and hops a train with his kiddo.
Yadda, yadda, yadda…zombies! A virus breaks out and South Korea is overrun with brain biters. Worse, they’ve overtaken most cars on the train, leaving human survivors with only a few cars to move around on.
What happens next is a heroic tale of survival. It becomes a constant running test when survivors are faced with a constant, repetitive choice, namely whether to slam a door between cars shut, sacrificing the life of a survivor who hasn’t made it through yet in order to protect one’s self and loved ones from the incoming zombie horde that’s chasing the unlucky human.
What would you do in that position? Risk saving a fellow passenger, or slam the door in their face to protect yourself? It’s a choice that’s made again and again, and as the movie progresses, we are left with a hope that maybe Seok-woo’s cold, businessman mentality might give way to a more humane, caring side.
Daughter Soo-an foils her dad’s efforts to think only for himself and his daughter. She often lends a hand to complete strangers, putting herself at risk and in doing so, involving her old man in situations he’d rather avoid.
Meanwhile, the noble Sang-hwa (Dong-seok Ma) serves as a more overt check on Seok-woo’s conscience, almost bullying the man half his size to do the right thing. While Seok worries chiefly about his daughter, Sang is worried about his pregnant wife, Seong-kyeong (Yu-mi Jeong). Yet, he believes he can save her, his unborn child, and everyone else he can.
No movie would be complete without a villain and that comes in the form of Yon-suk (Eui-sung Kim), a train company executive who, unluckily for everyone else, happens to be riding on the train and is willing to sacrifice just about anyone and everyone just to save his oily hide from the gray matter chompers.
Overall, it’s a great film, a real thinker, with special effects that rival a Hollywood blockbuster. Perhaps one of the more harrowing scenes comes when Seok, Sang and high school student, Yong Guk (Woo-sik Choi) form a three man phalanx and narrowly scrape through a tight car full of brain chewers in order to rescue their respective loved ones.
3.5 readers, Asia has really embraced the action genre and I don’t know if this is a new thing or perhaps it’s just something I’ve been turned onto thanks to Netflix, where you can find a vast cornucopia of Asian action films in subtitles. Some are dubbed with American voices, but I do prefer to just read the subtitles, so catch this one before it obtains a mainstream level of popularity and they ruin it with dubbing.
The Ip Man Series and almost anything with Donnie Yen are worth watching and while Hong Kong seems to be Asia’s Hollywood, South Korea is catching up with this flick.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Seriously, I know a lot of people are like, “Ugh, I have to read subtitles? No thanks. Too much work. It’s worth it and there’s plenty of action on screen to make up for it. It’s currently available on Netflix.
TA Henry, one of the 3.5 readers of this fine blog (so the other 2.5, I hope, are listening), is a friend to this blog, even though she once threated to shove a rubber duck in my hindquarters. I forgave her. I thought it was big of me.
Hmm…come to think of it, she may have already done that. I’ve been oiling my chair because it’s been squeaking every time I sit down but now, come to think of it, that sound might not be coming from the chair.
Hmm….curious. Moving on, TA is up for an award and needs your vote, so I hope 2.5 of my 3.5 readers will go cast their vote post haste.
My hands are shaking so hard I keep hitting the wrong keys. LOL.
This is the FIRST time I have been recognized for my work outside my loving friends and family. The FIRST time my work was held up by someone who makes their living judging books and who said this shit is good.
Every one says it’s a thrill just to be nominated. And it is. Beyond thrilling.
But imagine if I won?
To win, I need to get through to the finals. And that rests entirely on you, readers, voting for me.
BQB here with a review of the new Netflix series, “Mindhunter.” (BEWARE SPOILERS)
Hey 3.5 readers. I heard a random recommendation for this show on a podcast the other day and had I not heard it, I would not have known this show even existed. I’m not sure it’s getting the credit that it deserves because it’s well done, dramatic, smart, good timing, pacing, writing, acting, the whole she-bang.
I have no pull in Hollywood but I hope I can at least push the 7 eyes of my 3.5 readers to this outstanding series.
So, what’s it about? It’s the late 1970s. Watergate, Vietnam, and a series of 1960s political assassinations have left the public with what President Jimmy Carter once referred to as a “malaise” (although he never actually used that word but I don’t want to veer too far off track.) Essentially, the institutions society depended on were breaking down and people started losing faith, accepting that life kinda blows and there’s not much to be done about it.
Against this backdrop, a new form of criminal emerges. While the FBI was born in the name of stopping the likes of Dillinger and Capone, i.e. crooks with a clear motive (profit), there are now killers whose crimes are inexplicable – Charles Manson, Son of Sam, et. all. Murders that are bizarre, disturbing, gruesome and incomprehensible.
Young, late 20s FBI agent Holden Ford (Jonathon Groff), an instructor of hostage negotiation tactics at the FBI training academy at Quantico, wants to understand how humans become monsters and sees potential in applying psychology to criminology.
Alas, Unit Chief Shepard (Cotter Smith), a typical gear clogging government bureaucrat, sums up the FBI’s thoughts on psychology – it’s bunk, hippy dippy nonsense, pointless prattle about thoughts and feelings that are not worth the bureau’s time.
Enter Agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), a stereotypical gruff and grizzled, buzz cut sporting G-Man. He believes he’s found a golden gig in the FBI, teaching “road school,” i.e. each week he visits a different city, trains local law enforcement with a condensed version of FBI tactics, finds a lot of free time to hit the local golf courses, then heads home on the weekend to the wife and kid until he turns around and does it all again the next week.
Alas, Holden is assigned to work with Tench and as you might expect, he becomes a real turd in Tench’s punch bowl.
Holden sees a lot of potential in the road school’s downtime. During a visit to California, he talks his way into a prison visit to interview serial killer Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton), a 6’9,” 300 pound man who infamously killed his grandparents as a juvenile, only to be released as an adult, where he turned around and killed a number of women, cut off their heads and well, did unsavory things to said heads. He even did this to his own mother before finally turning himself in.
Holden arranges for multiple interviews with Kemper and slowly but surely, talks the skeptical Tench into believing that locked away in the minds of serial killers is the information needed for the FBI to develop the new science of “criminal profiling” i.e. looking at traits held by certain people and determining the likelihood they might kill based on those traits, perhaps maybe even one day being able to stop such gruesome murders from happening. Even further, they hope to be able to look at aspects of a crime, determine what kind of traits would be in a potential suspect and from there, be able to find the killer that much easier.
Thus, the FBI’s first behavioral science unit is born and soon enough, it grows in the form of Dr. Wendy Carr (Ana Torv) a professor turned FBI consultant.
As season one progresses, more serial killers are interviewed. Although Holden and Tench are amalgamations of the real life pioneers who convinced the FBI to incorporate psychological profiling into its box of detection tricks, the killers interviewed are all real, i.e. actors doing their best imitations of said murderers.
Britton steals the show as the socially awkward Kemper, who blames his mother for all his problems, and is apparently so lonely that he starts to live for Holden’s interviews. A crazy giant who kills people and fornicates with their heads is not exactly someone you want on your speed dial.
Happy Anderson plays Jerry Brudos, a hulking beast who murdered young women and stole their shoes (also blames his mother, it’s sort of a running, I don’t want to say joke but maybe a point that all the killers blame their moms).
Other killers include Montie Rissell (Sam Strike) who killed his female rape victims because he wanted them to be quiet and Richard Speck (Jack Erdie) who committed perhaps the most horrific acts in serial killer history, kidnapping a house full of nursing students and murdering all eight women in a single night.
The dynamic between Holden and Tench makes the series not just watchable but bingeable. Holden is fascinated by what he sees as psychological tidbits being mined from the brains of these madmen – aspects of their childhoods, experiences, upbringings, things that can be looked for when hunting murderers.
Tench reluctantly admits the research will be helpful and yet, the research disgusts him. While Holden views the interview subjects as victims of their own psychiatric circumstances, Tench views them as scumbag losers who couldn’t handle life so they flipped out and then blame everyone else but themselves for their own evil doings. At times, the buddy cop dynamic is fun and humorous.
From a writing perspective, it’s an example of how good writers can incorporate infamous figures from a history (here, a dark history) and incorporate fictionalized interactions to create something that is interesting.
Of course, no science is perfect and the ethical ramifications are explored. Is it possible to use profiling to stop crimes before they start? If a person is law abiding but exhibits strange but legal traits, should that person be deprived of a job, of a livelihood, cast aside from society, treated as a criminal before committing a crime? Holden wrestles with these issues as his research causes him to start seeing potential psychos everywhere.
As the buddy cop duo continue their research, they often get called into the field to help local police departments catch killers, giving Holden and Tench a chance put what they have learned into practice.
SIDENOTE: Congrats to McCallany, who is one of those actors who has long played tough guys in movies, one of those actors who is in a lot of stuff but you never know his name…until now.
Be vewy vewy quiet, 3.5 readers. It’s time for BQB’s review of “A Quiet Place.”
I love it when I’m pleasantly surprised. I knew very little of this film going into it. I thought maybe it was just a standard horror flick that husband/wife duo John Krakinski and Emily Blunt whipped out but it’s anything but standard. In fact, in this day of sequels, prequels and originals, you’ll want to scream for joy at this original idea.
But don’t. Don’t make a sound. You see, the world has been conquered by mysterious, scary creatures who, if you make a noise, will pop out of nowhere and eat you. The population has been decimated and survivors live very quiet lives. They make a modest amount of noise by walking around but other than that, no talking, no singing, no music and the slightest accident, i.e. knocking a plate onto the floor, can prove fatal.
There are exceptions to the “Be Quiet” rule. There are places, circumstances, etc. where talking can happen but for the most part, the characters rely on sign language, subtitles and facial expressions to tell the story. It’s impressive that the actors are able to get so much across by utilizing so little. From a writing standpoint, it’s an exercise in “show, don’t tell” because all the characters can do is show. They can’t tell.
Challenges abound. Not to get too deep into it but daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) is deaf and lives in a world where there isn’t a place that will fix her broken hearing aid. Just as in zombie apocalypse times, empty shops and ghost towns abound, and the Abbott family must get by through their wits and occasional scavenging.
Further, they engage in a variety of clever ways to go about their daily routine, figuring out how to get through their days as quietly as possible (an expected baby poses a significant challenge as we all know what babies love to do.)
Bookshelf Battle 