Jul 18 2024
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TV

TV Review – Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)

What a stinkfest, 3.5 readers.

Let’s get this review over with.

If you’re a social media enthusiast like me, then you know there’s a lot of hate afoot for this show. The YouTube reviewers REALLY don’t like it. And honestly, they go way overboard. They’re basically hating hard on the show for attention, though I don’t deny their hate isn’t genuine or that the show hasn’t earned it.

But honestly, sometimes the reviews are a bit much. I watch these reviews and they’re like “OMG! THE ACOLYTE IS A FLAMING HOT DUMPSTER FIRE THAT SMELLS LIKE RAW SEWAGE, HOBO TURDS AND REFRIED MOLDY DOG VOMIT! AVERT YER EYES LEST YE PUKE YER GUTS ODD FROM THE HORRIFYING SIGHT!”

And then I watch it I’m like, well, no, while this show does suck, it doesn’t smell like hobo turds or dog vomit or anything. So its almost as if by going too far overboard, the reviewers do the show a service. When you go in expecting hot poop on a shingle and get served cold snot on a shingle, you’re relieved by the upgrade.

All that said, I give the show a solid C, and for most shows I’d say, eh, if you’ve got the time, feel free to waste it on a C. But when it comes to Star Wars, this brand is so beloved by fans that it really burns our biscuits to see anything produced that isn’t a solid A.

The first problem? Star Wars was very much a product of its time. George Lucas invented special effects that audiences of the late 70s and early 80s had never seen before, so it’s hard to recreate a moviegoing experience when people of that era thought they :::checks notes::: LITERALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE WITNESSING MAGIC COME ALIVE ON SCREEN!!!

Flash forward some 40 years later, and we’ve been CGI-ed up the wazoo. We’ve seen it all and we’re so jaded little surprises us anymore. We expect good writing to go along with our CGI fest, which is a challenge for Star Wars, given that it is a story about space wizards who fight aliens and robots with laser swords and push stuff around with magic. Also difficult is that the property is primarily geared toward children and must be produced with children in mind, yet middle aged and even downright elderly fans will scream like stuck pigs if the stories don’t come with some adult sized depth.

Alright, all those challenges aside, Disney is one of the greatest entertainment companies in the world, right? They got this, right? No. Not as such.

Disney has been pissing Star Wars fans off a lot the past few years. It began with Last Jedi, where Luke was turned from hero into crusty old blue milk drinking depressive head case. It carried on in Season 3 of Mando, which took the great success of the first two seasons and pooped on them by turning the third season into a 70s variety act where any asshole in Hollywood could stop by for a cameo. No, Star Wars fans did not want to see a planet run by Lizzo and Jack Black.

There were other offenses, too numerous to mention. The force being turned into a magic “do it all” button with no rhyme or reason. There used to be rules to the force. Now if some character wants to do anything, the force just does it, and dweeby ass purists like yours truly who live and breathe this shit because we haven’t touched a woman in ages get pissed because if we’re just ignoring rules now, then why bother watching?

And don’t even get me started on the lightsaber stabbings that characters just walk away from…except sometimes they don’t. It’s a freaking sword that burns hotter than lava yet sometimes people survive getting gutted by one (I’m no medical scientist but I’m pretty sure a blade that hot would cauterize your intestines and cause you to fart fire out your asshole but that’s just my theory) but if the character needs to live, that a lightsaber stab is like a scratch that you just walk off.

Don’t even get me double started on all the chicks. I’m all for women in sci-fi but sometimes Disney has cast so many women and so few men that it’s like the only thing the Empire and Rebels can agree on is a hiring freeze on anyone with a weiner.

Don’t even get me triple started on Kenobi and…you know what? This is a Acolyte review, so let’s get to it.

The story is a Jedi semi-police procedural or Law and Order: Star Wars Unit, if you will. If, like me, you assumed that veteran sci-fi actress Carrie Ann Moss of Matrix’s Trinity fame would save this drek, you thought wrong, because her ass gets got in the first five minutes and from there on, the Jedi of the High Republic Era rush to solve the mystery of who killed her character, Master Indara.

Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae of Squid Game fame) leads a team with Jedis Yord (Charlie Bartlett) and Jecki (Dafne Keen, who you might remember as a young Wolverine protege in 2017’s Logan except she’s all grown up now.)

They investigate and arrest ex-Jedi Osha, at first assuming she committed the crime, but we quickly discover that her long assumed dead twin sister, Mae, is in fact, very much alive. Both sisters are played by Amandla Stenberg.

Mae is on a quest to hunt more Jedi, with the assistance of the red saber wielding, smiley masked “Stranger” and ally Qimir in tow. It’s up to the Jedi to stop Mae from killing their BFFs and unravel the mystery of why Mae wants them all outta the picture.

And honestly, that write up I just presented to you makes it sound way better than it is. I thought about explaining more, but I’ll let you watch it, if you choose to do so. There’s really no wrong answer to the question of if you should. You might like to watch it just to see what all the fuss is about or to critique it or to crap all over it. Some of you might actually like it. Truthfully, there were some parts I actually did enjoy but you know what they say. Every poop has some corn.

For example, characters like Sol, Jecki, and Qimir were pretty fabulous and I would have loved to see them in a better project. All the actors did their best with what they were given, even Amandla Stenberg. IMO she didn’t deserve all the negativity the reviewers gave her. And I believe all the stars will find this to be their breakout role with more roles to come.

I do understand the online criticism. Producer Leslye Headland was pretty vocal in interviews about hiring writers who knew very little about Star Wars and it shows. To Star Wars fans, this is the equivalent of hiring a non-doctor who has never even read a medical text book before to do your spleen surgery. Add to that, Stenberg saying Star Wars fans are gay (pretty sure she was just joking around, guys) and Bartlett confusing Luke with Anakin when it comes to the destroyer of the original Death Star and you had a team that just gave an overall impression that they didn’t really care about the world they were trusted with.

Does it sound silly? Maybe. Until you hire someone to work on your house and they have no idea what a hammer is, don’t know how to work a power drill, openly admit they’ve never fixed a house before….this is your beloved house, you’d get annoyed, wouldn’t you?

So ultimately, you had a team that didn’t know a lot about Star Wars and boy did it ever show. Long established rules and canon are thrown out the window and OK, if you’re not one of those nerds who is going to run to twitter and bitch about where a certain alien has three antennae or four, I get it, but even within the show itself, there’s just a lot of silliness, goofiness, and overall absurdity when it comes to the quality of the writing. Plotholes galore.

What are the problems? Too many to list but ultimately, it descends into a “oppressive cops got it wrong” tale. There are lesbian space witches afoot. They prefer to call the force the thread, a different space culture of force users entirely. The Jedi see them as a cult and fear they are abusing Osha and Mae and they need to be taken away and put under the Jedi order’s protection for their own safety.

Sounds like a really horrible abuse of authority…until the show goes out of its way to make the lesbian space witches do all manner of horrible things such that if you were a Jedi, you might say “eff this lesbian space witches” and whip out your lightsaber and fight them to save the children to.

Of course, and not to give it away but I guess I will, all the “bad things” are misunderstandings and the sights the Jedi saw and thought were horrible weren’t really but, you know, holy shit, if you were in the Jedi’s position and saw what you saw, you can’t really blame them so…ultimately I suppose its all an allegory for allegations of police brutality, because god knows that’s something every single last fan was clamoring to see in a Star Wars show.

I could go on. There are some dumb science mistakes and I know, it’s a show about space wizards but holy shit, just things like a crackling campfire in space. What the fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear.

I could rant for days but I’ll leave you with this. Imagine there’s a new Sex in the City Movie and all you lady readers who are into that sort of thing go to see it with 3.5 of your gal pals. It opens with Carrie and her friends drinking mimosas at brunch, about to dish the latest hot goss on the men they are seeing when…KABOOM! A fuckin’ tank blows up the side of a bank building and a hundred ninjas pour out. The ninjas run inside and karate kick the guards and steal all the cash bags but are instantly foiled when a renegade team of big swingin’ dick mercenary commandos show up on the scene and what? Where’s Carrie and the girls you ask? Fuck ’em, this is an action movie now, because I wrote it and you gals need to like it, you bigots.

What’s that you say? A female rom com written to appeal to male action enthusiasts is a stupid idea and everyone involved should be fired and made to wear a dunce cap? True. That’s probably why it never happens and yet, for some strange reason, Hollywood absolutely refuses to stop gearing action movies toward women.

Oh well. I suppose the all lady audience for movies about space wizards fighting aliens and robots will show up someday if you give them another 20 years.

STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. I’m tired of all this seemingly endless trend to make the Jedi the bad guy. I get it. You gotta do something different but this isn’t different. They’ve done it a thousand times. We want to root for the Jedi. We don’t want them to be the bad guys.

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Jul 15 2024
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Trump: Many Men (By KD Animator)

I try not to get political on this fine blog. That’s why my twitter is for, although I used to try not to get political on twitter but I couldn’t help it. But it’s not like anyone ever read my blog or my twitter anyway.

But I just wanted to wish the former POTUS a speedy recovery for his injured ear. Everyone needs to tone it down.

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Jul 09 2024
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Movies

Movie Review: Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter 1 (2024)

Get along, little 3.5 dawgies.

BQB here with a review of this old west epic.

The good? Thanks to the success of Yellowstone, the old west epic is back and Kevin Costner is striking while the iron is hot. This is the first of several planned movies that take place before, during and after the Civil War.

Style wise, it is beautiful with lots of great scenery and landscapes. At times, you feel like you’re in the Old West yourself. There’s attention to detail and authenticity. There’s no Netflixian cramming of uber woke lesbians fighting the patriarchy in the old west here.

The bad? It’s long. Heck, I went to my local theater at 6, thinking I’d be out the door by 8 and to my surprise, I didn’t get out until ten. Keep in mind there were previews and so on but at any rate, this sucker is a three hour plus commitment.

Costner is the main draw, featured prominently in all the trailers and marketing, yet he doesn’t enter the film until an hour in. This pissed me off at first until I realized how damn long the thing is and eventually, he was in it long enough that I didn’t feel bamboozled.

There are several competing plot strains and at times, it is difficult to keep them all straight. They all seem to center around Horizon, a town that a crooked real estate swindler sold shares to without telling the buyers that its smack dab in the middle of Apache territory and boy howdy, are the Apache ever pissed. The beginning features a rather gruesome Apache attack on a town full of settlers. From there, the narrative diverges into a number of points. There’s a mother (Sienna Miller) and daughter who survive the attack and are taken in by soldiers at a nearby fort overseen by Sam Worthington and Michael Rooker.

Meanwhile, there’s a difference of opinion amongst the Apache as to how to handle the settlers. The youngsters are pissed and see that their ability to hunt and trade has been destroyed. They want to push the settlers out, through violence if necessary. But the old gray hairs know the cost of violence is a pricey one and they advise suing for peace.

Double meanwhile, Costner’s wandering horse trader, Hayes Ellison, gets involuntarily mixed up in a dispute between a former prostitute who shot a john and his sons who want revenge. Hayes and the prostitute’s BFF Marigold (Abbey Lee) go on the run to protect the lady of the evening’s infant son.

Triple meanwhile, a wagon train heads for Horizon led by an ornery captain played by Luke Wilson. Snooty Brits under his care clash with the rough and tough pioneer folk.

Quadruple meanwhile, while some of the survivors of the Horizon massacre seek peace, others fan the flames of war by hiring a band of mercenaries led by Jeff Fahey (Jeff Freaking Fahey I haven’t seen him in a movie in years!) to retaliate against the Apache.

I sympathize with the question asked by many a reviewer of this film. Where the hell are all these storylines going and when or will they ever converge? I have no idea and the problem is at times, as you watch it, just when you settle in on one story line, you get pushed into another one. This could have just as easily been one movie about an Apache raid on a settler town and the ensuing fallout as Apache and settlers diverge on whether to go deeper into a bloodier, protracted war or to let cooler heads prevail and choose peace.

It could have just as easily been a movie about a horse trader who sticks up for a prostitute in danger and suddenly finds himself on the run with a baby and a hooah in tow and a bunch of villains chasing after him.

It could have just as easily been a movie about a wagon train.

My assumption is that all these people will eventually go to or away from Horizon. Horizon starts out as a real estate swindle but becomes the epitome of the American dream – pioneers seeking land and fighting for it against all odds.

In today’s political climate, I’m surprised this movie was made. It’s bold that it celebrates the pioneers and their spirit, putting on full display the deadly challenges of life in the old west. Pretty much any other movie made by a streaming service would go out of its way to make the pioneers look like villains.

To the film’s credit, it shows both sides, and while it starts out showing the Apache as violent, we later see the struggles and displacement that led to them to choose violence.

So the overall question: should you watch it? If the old west is your bag, then yes. I’m not sure I’d advise a trip the cinema. Although the scenery and vistas are pretty awesome and at times it feels like you’re riding around the desert with the cowboys (and if that’s your bag then by all means, buy a movie ticket) but otherwise, I think this would have worked better as 3-4 episodes of a series than a movie and if you wait for it to be on streaming, then you can pause it and watch it at your leisure.

Costner is promising more installments and all I can say is I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ll definitely watch them but so far the reviews and box office results aren’t stellar and that might mean future sequels aren’t certain. But hey, if you like Westerns, then support this project any way you can and let’s hope there’s more.

Speaking of unfinished projects, it bums me out that Costner and the Yellowstone showrunners haven’t patched their differences up yet, leaving that show in limbo and I’m now doubting if we’ll ever see a resolution to the last season’s cliffhanger. I would have liked to see Costner focus on that before starting an ambitious project like this.

One more note. At times, I’m not sure who this movie is for. Sometimes it has overtones of a glorified Hallmark movie, the kind my parents would have loved, you know, nice people behaving well in olden times. But then just when you get used to that, boom! Blam! Arrrgh! Shooting! Stabbing! Fire! Death! Murder! Gore! Swearing! And yes, even sex! The movie definitely earns its R rating, which a bum like me is fine with, but I feel like its primary audience is Grandma and Grandpa who may not be happy with that.

STATUS: Shelf worthy.

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Jul 06 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)

Dun dun da da dun dun dun.

BQB here with a review of ::: checks notes::: the latest sequel where one of our 1980s hero characters is brought back as a senior citizen to ride again.

You know, 3.5 readers, Hollywood sure has been keeping a lot of properties born in the 1980s artificially alive well into the 2020s, well past their prime, if you ask me. I liken it to burying your dead cat in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. You miss your kitty, so off you go to the cursed burial ground. You put your furry pal in, hoping he’ll live again, but what you get back is nothing like your fuzzy BFF. Instead, its a gross, disgusting, pathetic simulation, a terrible horror, frankly a crime against God and humanity that all you want to do is look away, beat it to death with a shovel and curse yourself for wanting it to live again.

That’s because, like your deceased kitty kat, these movies and franchises were products of their time. Star Wars was hot in the 1970s and 80s because the special effects were unlike anything movie goers had ever seen, and it had themes of defeating an evil empire and keeping the world in the light and from descending into darkness – like America had just defeated an evil empire in Nazi Germany thirty years earlier, and was trying to defeat an evil empire in Russia at the time and would eventually do so. Forty years later, art imitates life, so Star Wars has descended into nonsense about lesbian space witches, but I digress.

I could discuss why many films belong in the 80s and shouldn’t be resurrected for a time that doesn’t understand them, but we’re here to talk about the Beverly Hills Cop Franchise, which IMO jumped way over the shark when Axel investigated an evil amusement park in the third installment in the 1990s such that I’m surprised Hollywood decided to do a fourth now but as Yogurt from Spaceballs reminds us, there’s always a quest for more money.

So, my first question is why did Paramount hand this off to Netflix? Paramount has its own Paramount Plus streaming platform and I feel like this would have attracted a lot of viewers. I had a sub for a year and enjoyed watching a lot of Paramount stuff, like the old Star Trek movies, and Yellowstone, Maverick, the Fatal Attraction series (another dead cat in the Pet Sematary if you will) and so on.

I let my sub lapse but I would have renewed it to watch this because I like Eddie Murphy that much. So who knows? Netflix made the best deal I suppose.

In this installment, Axel heads to Beverly Hills where his estranged daughter Jane is a lawyer, under fire for representing a man falsely accused of a drug related murder. When his old pal Billy Rosewood calls Axel to let him know his daughter is in hot water, Axel is on the first plane to Beverly Hills, his old stomping grounds where he previously upset the status quo in this fancy schmancy uber rich town twice and/or three times if you count part three while dragging around his local cop buddies Rosewood and Taggart (John Ashton who honestly, I thought he died long ago so I was pleasantly surprised to see him still alive.)

Along the way, Axel teams up with Jane’s cop ex boyfriend Bobby (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) to take down a cabal of corrupt cops led by the top corrupt cop (Kevin Bacon). Don’t forget, Axel is from Detroit, so an opening scene checks in with his old cop buddy Friedman (Paul Reiser.)

So, whats the good? This movie has a lot of action. A lot. 1980s style action. A lot of car chases and crashes. Gun fights. Even a helicopter chase.

Eddie Murphy is remarkably well preserved. Whereas other 1980s icons bringing their stuff back in modern times (Harrison Ford, Sly Stallone) look like they are ready for the nursing home, Eddie, IMO, for an old timer, looks not that far from his younger self. It just doesn’t feel like you’re watching a geriatric running around, although I suppose you are.

The bad? Sadly, everyone else looks like they’re 1000. To the film’s credit, all the supporting characters are either in upper police management or moved on. They’d be happily spending their golden years waxing a desk chair with their butts if Axel hadn’t dragged them back into the shit. Friedman and Taggart are upper management in Detroit and Beverly Hills while Rosewood has left the force to become a private investigator.

The funny trio of Axel, Rosewood and Taggart was what made the first two films smash comedy hits. Taggart was a grizzled old prick who never wanted to deviate from procedure. Rosewood was young and trying to follow Taggart’s lead, but had a comical bloodlust such that once he got hold of a little firepower, turned into Rambo and started wildly shooting at the bad guys with any big, bad guns he could get his hands on with reckless disregard to his safety. Axel would drag these two nerds kicking and screaming into the breach.

And of course, Axel would rely on Eddie’s comedian skills to bluff his way into places he shouldn’t be, taking on all manner of silly accents and roleplays, conning his way behind closed doors.

While Taggart and Rosewood have key roles, they are, alas too old to be at the center of the action so the movie fails to recreate that fun 1980s buddy cop vibe they once had. They try by pairing Axel with Leavitt’s Bobby and they have some good moments but it isn’t the same.

Here’s my number one complaint. Apparently, all of our beloved 1980s heroes, when they are dragged back into modern times, have to be old trainwrecks, estranged from their wives and children. They did it with Han and Indy and Luke and now, Axel is divorced (he wasn’t married in the originals if I recall correctly) and his daughter hates him for letting his job come between him and his family. And by hate him I mean really hate him. Axel and Jane work the case and she is kvetching at him the entire movie and can’t give the guy a break for a second. Like seriously, the guns are blazing. The bullets are flying overhead and this chick is like, “Waah, you were never there for me, Dad, waaah.” WTF.

Look, I get that from a writing perspective, an older character being washed up can create great drama. I just wonder why Hollywood writers couldnt have said, hey we’ve done this so many times with so many other resurrected 80s characters that why can’t we give Axel a wife and a kid that actually like him? Would that be terrible? I don’t think so.

Bronson Pinchot returns as his classic Serge character but its 2024 so of course, Serge gets a lecture on how his Serge-ness might be considered offensive. I guess that was the price of allowing Bronson to be grandfathered in on doing a character with a foreign accent.

And whereas Axel fought criminals and crooks in the earlier films, today he takes on corrupt cops because, cops are evil right? The movie goes out of its way to reflect the current climate where cops aren’t too popular but Hollywood would do well to remember that cops aren’t despised everywhere in America and you know, criminals still exist so I don’t know why Axel couldn’t have been sent after some legit villains here.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I’ll give it credit in that its better than a lot of other sequels that breathed fresh life into old stuff but sometimes I wonder why Hollywood doesn’t look at what makes these movies great and rather than say “we can grandfather it in because its an old franchise” just apply it to new stuff. The car chases are awesome. The action is awesome. The gunfights are awesome. Just put more of that in new movies with younger actors. You don’t need Eddie and Arnie and Sly and Harrison to carry your water forever.

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Jun 24 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – The Bikeriders (2023)

Da Bears. Da bikes.

BQB here with a review of this kick ass macho flick.

Ahh, woke Hollywood. You suck. Really you do. You manage to ruin everything, so I want to thank you for keeping your greasy tentacles off this quality picture. Apparently, you were too busy turning the much beloved Star Wars franchise into a haven for furiously scissoring space lesbian witches that you didn’t get around to mess up this movie, and thus I was able for once in I don’t know how long to enjoy a good old fashioned dude fest, complete with bar brawls, fist fights, gun play, police chases, and bikes that go vroom vroom.

It’s an age old tale about how, if you have anything good, sooner or later, yahoo assholes are going to show up to tear it apart. Tom Hardy and Austin Butler star as Johnny and Benny, two fouding members of the Chicago Vandals Motorcycle Club in the early 1960s. At first, it’s a club for outcast gearheads to hangout, get drunk, party, and have fun with likeminded misfits who don’t fit in anywhere else.

But alas, a decade later, the club grows in size and popularity, inviting rougher, tougher, seedier reprobates than Johnny and Benny can handle. What began as a social club has turned into a haven for bloodthirsty psychopaths.

Alas, this club is their life, their reason for being, a way to share the open road with their compadres. And sure, yes, they did a lot of messed up, penny ante minor crimes, but is there any way they can save their club and their way of life from being stolen out from under them by violent monsters who just live to kill, rape, pillage, loot, plunder, murder and so on?

Double alas, this film came out early in the year. Oddly, it’s classified as a 2023 film though it came out to a wide release in theaters this weekend in 2024. At any rate, I doubt it will get much Oscar love because it deserves some. The way Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer completely transform themselves into different people is amazing. Yes, I know that’s what actors/actresses do but they take it to another level.

The Chicago accents are off the charts in this film, such that they remind me of that old SNL sketch where the superfans talked about Da Bears and Da Bulls. So get ready for that. Tom and Jodie go deep into said accents. Jodie, who you may remember as the love interest in Free Guy, steals the show as Benny’s girlfriend.

If you expect her to play a tough, gun toting biker moll, you’d be wrong. She actually narrates the film, telling the story to a reporter played by Mike Faist (he of one third of the menage a trois in Challengers) and apparently the real life biker club did have a reporter follow them around.

Jodie’s Kathy is a semi-humorous, with just a touch of SNL-esque version of a biker girlfriend, playing up the “what the heck am I doing with these jerks?” angle to the hilt. Note I said semi because it’s not so comical that it turns the film to a comedy, but she becomes the character that the (we can only assume) mostly law abiding audience can relate to. She is absolutely disgusted by the obnoxious behavior of the boorish clowns her boyfriend hangs out with, and complains about their antics vociferously throughout the film, yet in the end, loves Benny so much that she can pry herself away from him.

Jodie truly steals the show and this is a great star vehicle for her. This is one of those films where you say, “who is that actress?” and suddenly, you realize you’ve seen her in other films but this one got you to remember her name.

Bonus points for actors from other tough guy shows, like Damon Herriman (Dewey Crowe from Justified), Norman Reedus (Daryl in the Walking Dead) and of course, the uber weird Michael Sherridan.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. It just goes to show, 3.5 readers, if you ever build something good, some schmuck will inevitably pop out of the woodwork to try to take it from you.

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Jun 16 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – The Watchers (2024)

Have you ever felt like somebody’s watching you, 3.5 readers?

You know what no one is watching? This blog!

Open your peepers and start watching this review.

I’d never seen a trailer or any hype for this film. I don’t usually do horror. But I wanted to go out last night and wasn’t interested in Inside Out 2, so I checked this out. I’m glad I did.

Dakota Fanning stars as Mina, a troubled young woman who has fled to Ireland to escape a sordid past. With her trusty pet parrot in tow, she accidentally goes on the road trip to hell when her car breaks down in the middle of a scary forest. Alas, she soon discovers that no one has ever escaped this forest on foot before sundown alive in many years.

After being chased by scary, hard-to-see creatures, she finds a group of people in the same predicament. They too were once lost travelers, stranded by chance in the forest, but now they can’t leave. They lead Mina to a bunker with a 2-way mirror and inform of various rules that have kept them alive for years, namely that they have to remain in the bunker at night and they must stand in front of the mirror so the watchers can watch them.

Mina can’t believe this BS is her life now and dreams up various escape attempts, various ways to try to defeat and escape the watchers and I’ll leave it there. It’s up to you to watch the movie and discover the secret of who the watchers are and why they are watching.

I’ll tell you what made me feel old is this film is the directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of famed directory of scary horror movies with twist endings, M. Night Shyamalan. She was probably just born at the height of her father’s fame with these crazy twist movies and now she’s directing on her own. Where does the time go?

I will hand it to her in that she doesn’t go heavy handed with the ending like her old man did. I always felt like M Night got so much praise for the surprise twist at the end of The Sixth Sense that he never stopped trying to recreate it in every other movie he made whereas he probably should have just accepted that twist was a one in a million and just focused on making good movies.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Jun 09 2024
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Movies

Movie Review: Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)

Bad boys bad boys. What you gonna do? What you gonna do when BQB leaves a review?

Hey 3.5 readers. Your old pal BQB here with a review of the latest installment of the Bad Boys franchise.

It’s funny but I lead most reviews off now with my observations on how the film did at my local theater. I fear the theater industry is on life support and I hope the industry will do something to solve that because I don’t want theaters to become a thing of the past.

The past few films I’ve seen in the theater had sparse attendance whereas this one played to a packed house at my local theater. It was nice to see everyone having a great time and laughing at a film with plenty of jokes. At this point, Bad Boys is one of those flicks where viewers know what they’re getting. You probably won’t think much of it a day later, but you’ll have a fun time during the show.

The plot? Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back as buddy cops Mike and Marcus. This time they are out to clear the name of their deceased Captain Conrad. A cabal of crooked operatives working with crooked cops, Miami city officials and a drug cartel have pinned their crimes on the late captain who died in the last film but returns in flashbacks and recorded messages, played by Joe Pantaliono.

The script is a bit flipped – because of a recent heart attack that he survives, Marcus gets a new lease on life that causes him to take insane risks, much to the chagrin of Mike. Usually, Mike is the risk taker and Marcus is the one to complain about the danger.

I enjoyed this. Lots of good action, special effects. It just seems rare to get a good cop action flick these days. And if you can recall the previous films, hard because the first one came out in 1995, there’s continuity with old familiar faces and fan favorites stopping by.

One thing I’ll give this franchise credit for. I’ve always felt this franchise handles race well. You have white, black, latino and other races, all working together. They care about each other, back each other up, go to bat for one another and sure, there are jokes about race but its never heavy handed or in your face the way you’d see it on Netflix or any of the other super woke streaming services these days.

The downside? Martin and Will are getting a little long in the tooth and it makes me sad to see that given I feel like I saw their first adventure just yesterday. Where does the time go? Also, I always liked Will Smith so much that whenever I saw him on screen it was like seeing an old friend. This was his first movie post the Oscars Chris Rock slap and as a fan, I’ll just never be able to look at him the same way again. I suppose its akin to having a long time friend who did something wrong – you still want him to do well, but you know he should experience some consequences for his actions. What is the right call? Should he never be in a movie ever again? Would that be too much? Probably but maybe he should have sat out another year or two. IDK.

All in all, a decent action flick. Good but not great.

STATUS: Shelf worthy.

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May 27 2024
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Movie Review – Civil War (2024)

A house divided, etcetera, etcetera, 3.5 readers

BQB here with a review of Civil War.

I had no interest in seeing this in the theater, but fun fact (or maybe not so fun fact) about movies these days. If you miss it in the theater, wait a minute, and you can watch it on your TV. It’s this trend that is causing movie theaters to close by the boat load (including my local one) and frankly, changing the way movies are made. I think Hollywood wants this because if theaters are shuttered, they only have to make movies to TV standard, which means they can be churned out faster, cheaper, and schlockier, and they don’t have to make them to theater standard, which means the days of the well-written, well produced, blow your ass off blockbuster will soon be gone, if they aren’t already.

But I digress.

This film is a tad schizophrenic as it serves two purposes, neither of which it does well, but I’ll at least give it some credit as it tackles topics that other movies aren’t. First, it’s a love letter to journalists, those plucky scribes and camera jockeys who throw themselves into the breach of danger to get us the information we everyday schmucks need to keep informed, keep democracy alive, and keep our public officials honest.

Second, it serves as a warning to a country currently polarized and divided about the hellscape America could turn into if we continue to go down the path of hating on each other, failing to see our countrymen as people and treating them as villains just for having different points of view. While it’s normal that we’re all going to disagree in such a diverse country, we have to muster up some empathy, put ourselves in the shoes of our frenemies and consider where they are coming from rather than just write them off as “the evil other.”

It is largely a bizarre road trip movie, with journalists played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinley on a trek from New York City to Washington, D.C. with a plan to interview the president. In any other world, this wouldn’t seem like such a bad idea but in this world, it’s either courageous, or stupid, or both, but mostly dangerous, for the president, played by Nick Offerman, is a dictator who has installed himself in a third term, dissolved all checks on his power, and treats journalists as enemies to be shot on site. However, the team has intel that the president’s power is fading fast as the secessionist Western Forces approach Washington D.C. looking to take control and depose him, so perhaps under such circumstances, he might be willing to talk to reporters.

Spaeny’s Jessie is a young rookie while McKinley’s character, Sammy, is elderly. Lee (Dunst) resents having to turn her mission into what she calls “a kindergarten and nursing home,” fearing a kid and an old man will hold her back, but eventually plays protective mama bear. Dunst and Moura, who we know from Netflix’s Narcos, play impromptu parents on the road, except the final destination isn’t Disneyland and the sights are far from fun.

The online buzz leading up to the release of this flick was a bit much. It was a bit of a rorschach test as people saw whatever they wanted to see in the previews and the twit-o-sphere was a-light with questions as to what political message, if any, was this movie trying to sell, i.e. which side of the aisle would be blamed for this hypothetical, fantasy civil war, anyway?

To its credit, the film tries to avoid that. The president is portrayed as a despot, though his reasons for being one are never given and the backstory of how he was able to seize such power are never given. The President’s enemy, the Western Forces, are a coalition comprised of forces from California and Texas and I suppose the movie makers leave the audience to think about that scenario. California is the most liberal state in the union while Texas is the most conservative. If those two very unlikely allies were able to set aside their differences to join forces against a common foe, then the president must have truly been one great big, giant, economy sized asshole with extra butt-face sauce.

Yet, we aren’t given much indication that the Western Forces will be any better at governing or restoring democracy. They are ruthless in their takeover of D.C., the final scenes of a street by street firefight in the capitol are both exhilarating yet heartbreaking if you take it too seriously. At any rate, they break enough rules that you’re left to wonder if they’ll be any better than the man they came to depose.

Along the road trip, we are treated to all sorts of indications of how terrible life would be in a modern civil war. Sandwiches cost $300. Gas stations are protected by gun wielding owners who draw a bead on you the second you pull up to the pump for fear you’re here to rob them, and then they rob you by demanding you pay far more than the regular sale price. Riots are common. Violent gangs and factions go to war in the streets. Various militias and rag tag armies of villains have formed, taking advantage of the chaos to promote their own evil ends.

The movie came very close to avoiding politics except for two scenes, one where rainbow haired gun packers save our intrepid journalists from a sniper. No, said heroes don’t come right out and say they drive Priuses and vote for Biden but the rainbow having become a symbol for LGTBQ rights and all things liberal, you do the math.

Add in a scene where Jesse Plemons plays the leader of what we can only assume is an extremely far right militia that has been taking advantage of the chaos to round up anyone who isn’t white and execute them. The overall implication in the movie seems to be that in a civil war scenario, lefties would be the good guys and righties would be the villains.

In reality, I would in a civil war like the one described in the film, one where the president sucked so hard that a liberal and a conservative state joined forces, you’d probably see good and bad things from both sides of the political spectrum. You’d probably see lefties do some courageous things, but if the movie wants to go there, then it shouldn’t ignore that you’d probably have a lefty militia or two turning going full on Pol Pot, trying to impose communism. And sure, you’d probably see extreme far right militias committing hate crime atrocities without the rule of law to hold them back, but that not so extreme neighbor of yours, you know the guy who drives a pick up truck with a MAGA sticker on the bumper, loves the constitution and country music, can recite the constitution on command, worships the second amendment and has a small arsenal in his gun cabinet would probably be the first guy to save your ass from looters, rioters, psychopaths, perverts, crack pipe hitting weirdos and what have you once the shit hits the fan, and he wouldn’t ask what color you are or who you voted for.

So, I just think since the movie chose to get political, it should have gone all the way, and shown the good and bad of every side, rather than pick and choose. But I’ll give it credit that at the very least, it tries to avoid politics for 90 percent of the film’s run time.

Meanwhile, while the film is a love letter to journalists, and much can be said about journalists taking a beating as of late. The job sucks. The hours are long. The pay is shit. The pressure is unbearable. You’re under constant criticism, you never make anyone happen, someone always hates you. All that is presented well. We’re asked to appreciate journalists more as they are called upon to get us the information we need to keep democracy alive and hopefully keep such a tragic civil war from ever happening.

And yet, the movie fails to address a big criticism of the journalism industry as of late, namely, what role do they have in fanning the flames of division in this country? In the social media age, the country has never been more divided and while neither side has ever shared the same opinion, today we can’t even agree on the facts. If you’re on the left, there’s an abundance of outlets that will tell you the facts are X. If you’re on the right, there’s just as many outlets that will tell you the facts are Y. In reality, if facts can only be Z, then left and right wing journalists do us a disservice by warping facts to fit their agenda. And whether it’s a married couple or a nation, once people can’t agree on the facts anymore, that’s when divorce is right around the corner and the only hope is that it is an amicable one. So, the movie could have talked more about the need for journalists to reign in political agendas.

I will note the journalists are thrown into “the shit” and take photos of some truly heinous stuff, things that would make the average person puke and while they struggle with their emotions off the clock, when the action is on, you can see a twisted sort of delight in their eyes as they snatch those primo shots of mayhem and carnage so in that sense, perhaps there’s some criticism of the journalism industry as profiting off of suffering.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Despite my criticisms, it’s the only film that I know of that has taken on these serious topics, so I’ll give it credit for that.

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May 27 2024
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Movies

Movie Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

WITNESS ME, 3.5 READERS!

BQB here with a review of the latest Mad Max flick.

It’s funny, 3.5 readers. We’re up to 5 films now set in the world of Mad Max and I dare say the franchise never really hit its stride until the fourth one in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road where the titular Max took a back seat and let a woman do all the driving.

Sounds like my life. I’ve never driven a car with a woman in it who didn’t backseat drive me but anyway.

For the uninitiated, these films take place in a future, post-apocalyptic world, one where nuclear strikes have left nothing but desolate, desert wasteland and packs of crazed weirdos clad in the freakiest leather biker outfits you’ve ever seen go to war over limited resources. Those wars take place on the road with dusty, rusty scrap heap cars and bikes turned into killing machines. In fact, the second installment in this franchise was called “The Road Warrior,” but I digress.

In the last film, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) hijacked a truck and absconded with the forced wives of vile warlord Immortan Joe, with Mad Max as her ally and co-pilot (Tom Hardy).

In this prequel, we see the story of how young Furiosa (Alyla Browne plays kid Furiosa and Anya Taylor-Joy plays young adult Furiosa) ended up in forced servitude to Immortan Joe, because that’s totally a story we all wanted to see and though I joke, it’s not a bad one.

The plot? Very young Furiosa once lived an idyllic life in an oasis, a rare patch of land with greenery and water, beloved by her sister and mother. Alas, she is kidnapped by biker weirdoes in the employ of Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Screw Thor. This very well might be the role Chris Hemsworth was born to play, for he chews scenery and loves it as a raving psychotic villain, totally drunk on power and in love with himself, a wannabe ruler who can’t quite figure out how to turn his gang of motorcycle madmen into the empire that he desires. I don’t know if it’s the prosthetic nose or the extra-nasally Australian accent (Hemsworth already is an Aussie but he just speaks like he needs to blow his nose throughout the film) but Hemsworth really nails this role which is rare for him as he almost always plays the good guy.

Double alas, Furiosa’s mother is killed in an attempt to free young Furiosa. From there on, it’s a series of tragedies, battles and wars as Furiosa goes from kid to young adult, played by the wide-eyed Anya whose wide eyes do most of the acting and tugging of your heart strings. Furiosa is eventually sold into slavery to Immortan Joe and when given the choice between escaping or learning how to become a kick ass road warrior under the tutelage of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke doing an uncanny young Mel Gibson impression I assume to give this flick its dose of Mad Max cred) she chooses the latter, for in doing so, she will develop the skills to take on the nasal talking doofus who killed her mother and ruined her childhood.

The good? It’s a pretty solid action flick and a darn good time. It is a revenge fantasy, the overall point being that Hemsworth hams it up, playing Dr. Dementus up as such a total dick cheeseburger with fries that you can’t wait for Furiosa to give him his comeuppance.

The bad? Fury Road was a masterpiece. I always thought George Miller had a great idea in the Mad Max movies but wasn’t able to truly bring his vision to life until 2015 when film technology caught up to his ideas, allowing special effects to bring all those awesome road wars to life.

That was my long-winded way of saying that while this is a good movie, it’s no Fury Road. There are some awesome road war car chase battle scenes with all sorts of mayhem afoot. But there are no weirdoes playing guitars, jumping around on bungie chords, flames shooting out as they jump around and so on.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that this movie doesn’t have a lot. It’s just that Fury Road had SOOOO much.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Worth a trip the theater. Chauvinist pig that I am, there’s a part of me that wants to complain about turning over a male character’s film series to a chick, but the last film was really good and this one is a great prequel. To its credit, Furiosa survives with her wits, her skills, and yes, she is fueled by hatred of her enemies, which Dr. Dementus foolishly advises her is a good thing. You don’t see her doing that tired old cliche of being a tiny woman throwing around a 300-pound goon. She just runs them over instead. That works.

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May 19 2024
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Movie Review – If (2024)

So many imaginary friends, so little time.

BQB here with a review of this heartwarming kids’ movie.

I wasn’t going to see this, but happened to be around a movie theater tonight with nothing else to do so thought, what the heck. Glad I did. While it’s not the typical type of movie I’m into, it has heart and if you’re looking for something the whole family can enjoy, then you can’t go wrong here.

The plot? 12-year-old Bea (Cailey Fleming) has suffered too much in her young life. Visits to her grandmother (Fiona Shaw) ‘s apartment in NYC can only mean one thing – one of her parents is in the hospital. She spent some time there as a little girl while her mother was dying from cancer and now, as a tween, she’s back, staying in the city while her father (John Krakinski) undergoes heart surgery.

Alas, poor Bea fears she may be on the verge of losing another parent when new wild and wacky friends come into her life. She discovers she is one of very few people who can still see imaginary friends long past the little kid stage of life.

Another such person is Cal (Ryan Reynolds) who lives in an apartment on the next floor in Bea’s grandmother’s building. While Bea finds her ability to see “IFs” amusing, Cal has long considered it a curse, because these weirdoes won’t leave him alone! Since he’s the only adult who can see them, he has a duty to help them find new kids to be BFFs with, seeing as how their previous kids grew up and forgot all about them.

Cal runs a placement agency for the IFs out of his apartment but it isn’t going well. He has the knowledge, but the IFs drive him nuts. Bea is young and inexperienced, but she has patience and easily establishes a rapport with the imaginary creatures.

And so, a partnership is created as Cal and Bea set out to place every last forgotten imaginary friend with a new kid who needs a BFF. Said IFs range from a big blue furry monster, a British bug girl, a talking glass of water, a talking banana (well, they all talk), a robot, a superhero raccoon, a pink alligator, a unicorn, a Shakespeare reciting ghost, a noir-style private detective and more.

The understated and/or unstated theme of the movie seems to be that kids are savvier than ever these days, so getting them to believe in the non-existent is difficult, ergo finding kids to pair the imaginary friends with is quite a chore. The movie gets a little schizophrenic as the writers can’t quite seem to decide whether the goal is to pair the IFs with new kids or to reunite them with their old kids who forgot them, who are all now adults and sadly, as we see, many of those adults are going through hard times and could use reminders of their happier childhood days.

Steve Carrell lends his voice to the big fluffy monster Blue, while the late, great Louis Gossett Jr. delivers what I believe is his final performance (unless another movie buff knows better) as the wise old teddy bear Lewis.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I’m not sure this one will go down in the annals of children’s movie classic history, but I give it a solid A. You’ll love it. Your kids will love it. It has a good message about finding little bits of joy amidst the endless stream of sorrows that life provides. Never too early to teach your kids that life is one great big pile of shit and they need to dull the pain with imaginary fantasies of wonders that will never, ever be. OK I’m not entirely sure that’s what the movie was trying to say but that’s what I got out of it.

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